In the past few weeks my motivation has reached a new low, mostly because we have no arena. But this week a new problem emerged. Bosco is barefoot and has never worn shoes. He grew up at Trollspeilet where the ground is mostly made up by river sand. This will not become as muddy or as hard as the ground where I keep him now. And we have got alot more gravel roads so his hoofs needs to adjust abit and before they do, he is not comfertable.
This was a problem in may, when it was wet everywhere, exept on the roads, and its a problem now.
The other day I wanted to train him in the round pen, but quickly realised that was not a good idea, as he was so touchy on his frontlegs he was almost lame. The roundpen is usually ok, but now anything else than grass was not comfertable. Of course I get worried that there might be something else than just sore hoofs (have no idea what the english expression for this is), so when the vet was at the stable on thursday I asked him to take a look at Bosco. He did not think it was anything else and I should keep him where he is comfertable until he comes back next week to see if there is any change.
This has also given me a kick in the butt, I have to get boots for him! I have been planning to order some for a long time, but since its impossible to buy boots over the counter I have hesitated since I want to try them on. I got a tip about someone who imports Renegades and she has boots I can try before ordering, nice! I think renegades is the way to go with his hoofs, atleast according to others who has tried different boots. So now we will try them out and be more carefull at spring and autumn, where his hoofs are the most sensitive.
Hopefully he will be allright with the boots, or else I would have to consider to shoe him, but I don't want to do that unless I have no other choice. Whats most important is that Bosco is comfertable.
He showed me today that he is more than comfertable outside in the pasture. When I let him out after feeding him he was really playful. Tried to get the other horses to play with him. Fist victim was Stelpa, a small medium aged icelandic horse who is the lowest ranked horse in the herd. She wasn't that interested, but Bosco kept chasing her around, throwing his neck, rearing and rolling over multiple times. After a while he got bored with her and moved on to "Flekken" (the norwegian version of the nickname Spot). With a full fronal assault he tried to get him to play with him, but no luck there either. I was watching with a friend and we tried to get her horses to play with Bosco, but no luck there either. We quickly realised that her horses are his ladies, and not playmates. Oh well, atleast he doesn't have any pain when he is in his pasture. I will just give him the time off while I buy boots and hopefully we have a solution!
