New Name and New Legs (well, sort of...)

I think I finally found a fitting name for Truly's filly. "Dakota" means "friend" in the Lakota Sioux language, and this filly wants to be everyone's friend. She's a real sweetheart and I've tried the name out now for about a week and it's sticking, so I think I'll go with it.


This picture does her absolutely no justice at all, but I had just trimmed and groomed her and she was feeling pretty, so I felt obligated to capture the moment. She actually is a very pretty girl in real life.

You may remember that Dakota's front legs are a significant cause for concern. After pinging a very knowledgable forum, I tend to agree with their prognosis that Dakota suffers from epiphisitis and is most likely prone to it due to genetics. In order to "correct" this as much as I can, I've had her on a "cleansing" diet, formulated from my experience with fast-growing halter horses to clean up issues such as these. I do need to do one more step and add some MSM. Today I've started her corrective trimming.

This is her "before" picture, the day she was dropped off:


And today:

There isn't a huge difference as these issues take a LOT of time to correct and I would be very surprised if she ever did look completely normal. That being said, this is a good example in the very smallest of changes making a huge difference in how a young horse grows. Every little bump matters. Take a look at her knees. Notice the left side (her right side) knee is not nearly as swollen or disjointed looking as it does in the before picture. This allows the cannon bone to not be at nearly as much of an angle as it was before. Notice the lower part of the inside of the right (her left) knee is much more swollen in the before picture. Now the swelling has gone down and only remains in the top portion of the joint.

Take a good look at the angles of her coronet bands in the first photo and see how much better they are in the after photo. Some of this has to do with how she's standing but I also balanced out her feet. They were balanced in the sense that the bottoms were fairly flat before, but I also removed all the flares she had (something traditional farriers don't do a lot of) which gives her an even traveling surface as well. Think about if your tennis shoes had 90 degree angles on the edges rather than it being rounded off. It would make it a lot harder to go for a run, stop, turn, and take off, wouldn't it? That's why removing flares are so important. It also helps the hoof grow more correctly. The better one keeps up with flares, the healthier the horse's hoof will be (and it prevents abcessing, white line disease and soft soles).

In trimming her I noticed her toes made points, so she is not breaking over evenly when she walks (which makes sense with her legs) so I rounded off her toes significantly. This will certainly put a little additional strain on her knees, but it is neccessary for getting her straightened out, so now I need to not only keep an eye on her from this angle, but from the side as well to make sure she doesn't begin popping out those knees. I will add MSM to help the joints and further restrict her diet, which will cause her to lose some weight, but I will also add additional fats (corn oil) to ensure she does stay in good flesh as winter approaches. Unfortunately she's not looking as great as when Sandra and Jennifer dropped her off, but these changes are neccessary to get her legs cleaned up--then we can worry about getting her bod back to looking fabulous!

Keep your fingers crossed. I am very happy with what just the dietary changes and just one trim has done so far!