In February 2007 John came to Performance Barefoot whilst his owners went on an extended holiday to New Zealand. John had a pretty good year in 2006 being sore on stones but not bad on all other surfaces. He had been happy to stand on concrete while being trimmed but he had had to live in a totally grass free environment. So he came to us with our specialist facilities and knowledge for the time his owners were away
The moment John arrived though Warwick was concerned. He was going through a bad bout of laminitis. This seemed to coincide with the stress of being parted from his field companion who had been put out on loan. Thankfully we could reassure Warwick that we would cope and although John was far from comfortable for the next week he improved once again to being comfortable on forgiving surfaces and walking very carefully on stony ones.
Then we noticed something strange. His incisors were overlapped, this gave him the appearance of being parrot mouthed. We rang Robin, our Equine Dentist immediately and asked him to take a look. We also sent emails to barefoot experts around the world. Could this be what was causing John to be so sensitive? Could a problem with teeth be a trigger for laminitis? Robin had never come across such a thing but Paige Poss of Iron Free Hoof had. We can’t tell you how excited we were, maybe this was the reason, the cause? Food was collecting under the overlapping teeth. Was it causing a gut imbalance? Was it trapped food causing a low level gum infection which was causing toxicity throughout his whole system?
When Warwick returned he immediately got Robin and his vet to address the overlapping incisors. Robin ground them, while John was sedated, so that they floated above the ones below therefore preventing the build up of debris. From that day John has not been laminitic. He now trots over the stones on the tracks in Clocaenog Forest in North Wales. Warwick is planning to break him to harness, a plan he has had for at least the last four years but has never been able to put into practice, and we continue to jump for joy when each time we return to trim John’s feet we see connection returning and the white line stretch reducing.
