Oliver (dbL)
May 2021 - Pulled shoes and set up trim
September 2021
October 2021
December 2021
April 2022 - Oliver was pretty sore before and after this trim. He licked and chewed a lot every time he got his foot back during the trim and he did his best to help me. We put him in his cloud boots after the trim. I feel like we’re making progress but the back of his feet are still contracted and that retained dead sole callous was really stuck on there. I’m estimating that the dead calloused wedge is relative to how much coffin bone is missing and it causes too much pressure of I leave it and not enough support if I take it off. The sole is not soft or thin underneath. There’s just nothing to lean on to get away from the pain in the back of the foot. If I left it on he’d have toe pain and heel pain so I opted to take it off and use boots until the void fills in with a little more retained dead sole and eventually calloused live sole. Each time I trim I’m counting on a little more live sole to build and a little less dead sole to retain. I asked the caretaker to put some neosporin plus pain in the central sulcus to help relieve some pain and clear up the deep crack. Ultimately the decontraction and soft tissue depth will strengthen the back of the foot and make it more comfortable but for now I’ll do my best to trim less more often so he doesn’t get as sore.
April 2022 - Hopefully this is the tail end of this stubborn retained dead sole callous. I’m glad we have Cloud boots for him.
August 2022
1 year progress
1 year progress
March 2023
March 2024 - Oliver is going through a really sore patch at this time. We had a lot of rain for a couple of months. Normally that doesn’t affect fully live feet in a negative way but when they’re underdeveloped with dead horn retention, the dead stuff starts sloughing or wrinkling and the feet get really soft, sore, and ugly. I use Cloud boots and frequent minimal trim corrections to get them through this phase. Oliver is missing quite a bit of p3 from being steel shod for so many years. He has decent soft tissue but he needs some toe support to keep the heels actively engaged. When they’re missing bone at the toe, it tips them on their forehand no matter how good the soft tissue is. This puts their weight bearing on the bridge and makes them lame. There are trim details that you can do to make them more comfortable but the more bone they’re missing the more difficult it is to get them comfortably through the wet periods.
August 2024
October 2024
October 2025
November 2025
