Rookies Go Gluing

When Durango EasyCare customer service reps Devan and Rebecca (that’s me) decided to go gluing it was a bit like the hot dog leading the bun. Never you mind that we STILL have yet to decide who is the hot dog and who is the bun in this dynamic duo. We got curious about what it might be like for our gung-ho customers out there who buy the supplies, watch the videos, and tackle a DIY EasyShoe application in the “real world” so we did it ourselves. With a lot of things up in the air, one thing was certain: what we lacked in experience we more than made up for in enthusiasm!

The set up. Do we really have everything we need? Guess we are about to find out!

Ever wonder what’s in the EasyCare break room fridge? No? Well now you know. It’s horse shoes, adhesive, and jam.

Thanks to Devan, hoof prep went off without a hitch. She was on top of being ready with the next tool, picking up opposite feet, slipping boots on, cracking jokes, etc. I’m pretty sure this experiment would have gone quite differently as a solo mission. We took plenty of time and double checked every step. The Hoof Buffy outfitted with a 60 grit sleeve and my cordless Dremel with 9931 bit made cleaning and roughing hoof surfaces a breeze. The new Easyboot Zip made keeping feet clean and ready for glue a snap. Shoe sizing, the size 5 with 16mm spacer couldn’t fit better. Nice and tight on the foot, good contact with the hoof wall around the whole cuff, and nothing hanging off the back. Truly a glass slipper!

Size 5 Performance Shoe with a 16mm spacer-it doesn’t get any bigger than this!

There is a special kind of adrenaline rush that comes with using Adhere on a hot day. Despite knowing I had allowed myself some extra time by storing the glue and shoes in the fridge all day and then transporting them in a cooler on ice, it was still readily apparent that time waits for no man. Or EasyShoe.

Giant feet=lots of glue. I was liberal in my application and it took almost a full tube of Adhere to do just the front feet. Next time I’m getting a horse with smaller feet. At least my mare is an easy keeper and gets fat just looking at hay. Less feed, more glue-I guess it all comes out in the wash! For all you lucky ones dealing with normal size feet you can expect 4 shoes out of a 180cc cartridge.

There was only one trouble spot and it was the result of the glue getting warm on such a hot afternoon. The warmer the materials, the less time you have. I noticed the Adhere setting up before I had applied it to the outside third of the shoe (I worked outside to inside). It was harder to pump through the tip and looked a little pasty and dull. Remember the adrenaline rush thing? Yeah-at this point I was feeling like I could relate to the gazelle trying to outrun the lion. I got the shoe glued to the foot and it looked good enough, but deep down I knew it spelled trouble. My suspicion is that the outside heel (where the glue was pasty) will pop off early. Stay tuned for the ending of that cliff hanger.

The only other hiccup was blowing a buffy sleeve off when the bladder heated up and expanded. Fortunately Rosie wasn’t nearly as amped on adrenaline as I was and didn’t tear the barn down spooking at the very loud bang. Good horse.

The Buffy is totally addictive. I love this thing!

The finished product. Good but next time will be even better!

The takeaway from the whole experience for us was really the temperature thing. The Glue, the Shoe, and ideally the hoof all need to be around the same temps. The only thing we would have done differently was to cool the glue before tackling the second shoe. I can only imagine how important that would be if we had glued all four! Everything else went smoothly and we were talking about when we could glue Devan’s horse before Rosie was even done. This EasyShoe thing is actually really fun! We will keep you posted on how our little experiment turns out.