Last month, I had the privilege of attending an EasyShoe Clinic at Arroyo Del Mar, an outstanding facility in Southern California run by Steffen and Shannon Peters. Shannon was a gracious host and has her own personal experience with the EasyShoe, as Garrett Ford discussed in his last blog, Why Do We Do This? For Successes Like Squishy’s!. The level of expertise at this clinic was quite phenomenal. Daisy Bicking of Daisy Haven Farm led the clinic along with Garrett, Ernest Woodward and Paige Poss of Anatomy of the Equine. The clinic kicked off on Friday evening with a presentation by Garrett and Daisy. After that, Paige performed dissections on two different hooves. It was very interesting to see the differences in the various structures of the hooves.
Garrett and Daisy begin the clinic with a presentation.
On Saturday, we began the hands-on portion of the clinic by first selecting a cadaver hoof. Next Daisy discussed her preferred technique of hoof mapping and we marked our hooves accordingly. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and although I have experience trimming my own horses I am definitely not a trimmer. I won’t go into too much detail so if you would like to learn more about hoof mapping and EasyShoe application, attending one of Daisy’s clinics is a must!
We had the opportunity to take “before” x-rays and then we went to work trimming our cadavers. I was one of the last people to select a cadaver and the “more interesting” aka challenging hooves were selected by the trimmers and farriers in attendance. I was glad to have a hoof that was straight forward since I do not have any experience trimming pathological hooves. After trimming, we took our “after” x-rays before we prepared them for gluing.
X-rays before (left) and after (right) trimming.
The most important key to success with the EasyShoe is a thorough preparation. If you want your shoes to stay on, please do not rush the prep! The video below shows the steps necessary in a proper preparation.
On Saturday afternoon there were demonstrations on live horses. We saw the application of the EasyShoe Performance with Vettec Adhere and EasyShoe Bond and an application of the EasyShoe Performance N/G. The presenters did a great job of explaining the steps in their application and they were happy to answer questions.
Sunday was glue day – it was time to put all of this newly acquired knowledge to the test. Participants were allowed to choose which glue they wanted to practice with and were then divided into their respective groups (Vettec Adhere, EasyShoe Bond using the dispensing gun, EasyShoe Bond mixed in a cup with copper sulfate). I have a small amount of experience with Vettec so I chose the EasyShoe bond/copper sulfate group. Once in our groups, we were allowed to practice one at a time under the guidance of our instructor. My group was led by Ernest Woodward; he was a wonderful teacher and I have a deep respect for his knowledge and patient nature. My application is definitely a novice effort but the experience was very insightful.
The next EasyShoe clinic is less than a month away and will be held south of Charlotte, NC at the Anne Springs Close Greenway. We have participant and auditor positions available however space is limited so we encourage you to register ASAP if you want to attend. For the full clinic agenda click here: EasyShoe Clinics. To register click here: EasyShoe Clinic Registration.
Alayna Wiley
Marketing and Sales
I assist the marketing and sales departments at EasyCare with a special interest in hoof care practitioner and veterinarian dealer accounts. My horses have been barefoot and booted since 2003.
