bluerose,
Thank you!! If you lived closer I'd buy you lunch
I wish I could find the actual study in which he measured blood perfusion in the foot -- I've waded through about 9 google pages and the links therefrom, and not come across it yet grrrrr -- but the stuff I've found quoting him, and one of his other studies, plus the links you posted, are really interesting! Cool
I would like to point out that he shares my belief that perpetually-wet conditions are damaging to horses feet (for our practical purposes -- he also makes the argument that there is an evolutionary *benefit* to the way that a soggy hoof comes apart, which I'm not especially convinced by but it is an interesting idea all the same). I quote him here from the WLD link that you posted:
Quote:
As regards the effect of shoes, I would also like to point out that the two things that (if I understand you correctly) you are claiming are NOT WHAT HE SAYS.
First, although it is difficult to be certain without having seen the original study (I will continue looking for a citation), I am pretty certain from what summaries I've seen that he did NOT compare a shod vs barefoot foot. What he did was look at "barefoot horses with exceptional hooves" (note that adjective there), on various soft surfaces, and also on two hard surfaces (wood and cement) where the weight was born entirely(?) by the hoof wall. He labels this latter circumstance "peripheral loading".
Perfusion of the foot - the amount of bloodflow into the foot that goes through the small vessels of the foot, as opposed to just heading right back up the leg - was about 90% on the 'best' soft surface, pea gravel, and was 55-65% under peripheral loading.
He also apparently measured perfusion with the foot in midair, after a palmar digital nerve block, and in a laminitic horse -- perfusion was lower in all them, but there is no particular relevance there to shoes vs no shoes.
I cannot see where he measure perfusion in a shod foot on a softish surface. I don't think he did. (I'm not complaining, it sounds like a really good study, I'm just saying you can't imagine tests he didn't do
) And only THAT would be really relevant to what a shod horse experiences, because good husbandry practices do NOT involve the horse spending significant time on wood- or concrete-hard surfaces.
(From the results he did get, I would personally expect perfusion in a shod horse on sand or earth or gravel to be in between barefoot-on-soft-surface and peripheral loading -- meaning, probably some decrease in perfusion but not really that much).
Furthermore, I see NOTHING in anything at all that he writes, even in other essays on foot function and barefoot-vs-shod, to suggest that shoes create numbness, as you suggest. And I would have thought that if he meant this, he'd say it in the essays on the link you gave. I would be curious what evidence you would refer to for the numbness thing? (BTW he does talk about how shoes shift weightbearing forces to different parts of the hoof -- as I was explaining yesterday -- and feels that this is largely what accounts for the lower perfusion of the foot under peripheral loading).
So it would seem that perhaps you and I *both* have learned something
but I want to really most sincerely thank you for directing me to this, I've heard *of* his work but never really read much about it nor read anything he's written. I am most impressed with his common-sense and evidence-based approach, and he has many interesting ideas.
Thanks,
Pat, whose horses have been barefoot *anyhow* (courtesy of good farriers) since LONG before it became fashionable, but I'm still interested in the whole subject
Thank you!! If you lived closer I'd buy you lunch
I wish I could find the actual study in which he measured blood perfusion in the foot -- I've waded through about 9 google pages and the links therefrom, and not come across it yet grrrrr -- but the stuff I've found quoting him, and one of his other studies, plus the links you posted, are really interesting! Cool
I would like to point out that he shares my belief that perpetually-wet conditions are damaging to horses feet (for our practical purposes -- he also makes the argument that there is an evolutionary *benefit* to the way that a soggy hoof comes apart, which I'm not especially convinced by but it is an interesting idea all the same). I quote him here from the WLD link that you posted:
Quote:
As regards the effect of shoes, I would also like to point out that the two things that (if I understand you correctly) you are claiming are NOT WHAT HE SAYS.
First, although it is difficult to be certain without having seen the original study (I will continue looking for a citation), I am pretty certain from what summaries I've seen that he did NOT compare a shod vs barefoot foot. What he did was look at "barefoot horses with exceptional hooves" (note that adjective there), on various soft surfaces, and also on two hard surfaces (wood and cement) where the weight was born entirely(?) by the hoof wall. He labels this latter circumstance "peripheral loading".
Perfusion of the foot - the amount of bloodflow into the foot that goes through the small vessels of the foot, as opposed to just heading right back up the leg - was about 90% on the 'best' soft surface, pea gravel, and was 55-65% under peripheral loading.
He also apparently measured perfusion with the foot in midair, after a palmar digital nerve block, and in a laminitic horse -- perfusion was lower in all them, but there is no particular relevance there to shoes vs no shoes.
I cannot see where he measure perfusion in a shod foot on a softish surface. I don't think he did. (I'm not complaining, it sounds like a really good study, I'm just saying you can't imagine tests he didn't do
(From the results he did get, I would personally expect perfusion in a shod horse on sand or earth or gravel to be in between barefoot-on-soft-surface and peripheral loading -- meaning, probably some decrease in perfusion but not really that much).
Furthermore, I see NOTHING in anything at all that he writes, even in other essays on foot function and barefoot-vs-shod, to suggest that shoes create numbness, as you suggest. And I would have thought that if he meant this, he'd say it in the essays on the link you gave. I would be curious what evidence you would refer to for the numbness thing? (BTW he does talk about how shoes shift weightbearing forces to different parts of the hoof -- as I was explaining yesterday -- and feels that this is largely what accounts for the lower perfusion of the foot under peripheral loading).
So it would seem that perhaps you and I *both* have learned something
Thanks,
Pat, whose horses have been barefoot *anyhow* (courtesy of good farriers) since LONG before it became fashionable, but I'm still interested in the whole subject
