Wednesday May 13 2009
Stormy's got navicular syndrome (heel pain, basically.) Last time he had a good exam years ago, there was no bone damage on the Xrays, but we didn't pin-point the problem. Pain can come from the navicular bone, cartilage damage, inflamed navicular bursa, deep digital flexor tendon damage, etc, and no single treatment works for all cases.
He's lame off and on, and he does best with natural balance shoes. He was able to go barefoot in the winters several years ago, but not anymore. Now if he loses a shoe, he instantly goes lame. As he did in this case.
Linda and Mike of Perfect Balance Hoof Care had a custom design job to do after Stormy ripped his left front shoe off, ripping with it a lot of the hoof wall on both sides, leaving very little to nail a shoe to.
Michael did the artwork: heating the shoe, and very carefully, hammering a little bit at a time - repeating the heating and hammering process many times - pounding out a first, then a second, very large clip that would fit over the missing hoof walls.
Once the clips were shaped and bent perfectly and filed down, a pad was trimmed and fit precisely into the shoe, screwed to the shoe, and then Michael carefully nailed the assembly on, with 2 nails on each side helping to hold the shoe in place, with the clips.
Custom fit, instant soundness, one-of-a-kind-in-the-world designer shoe, and of course, most importantly, very stylish.
(And so far - 3 1/2 weeks - the shoe has stayed on!)
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