XXXIX. FOUNDER, CHRONIC LAMINITIS OR DROPPED SOLE.
There is only one way to shoe this kind for comfort to the animal, and for an earning remuneration for the owner. In founder or chronic laminitis, where the sole of feet are dropped, caused by the displacement of the weight-bearing bones of the foot, fix the feet by lowering the quarters and heels so as to get as much frog pressure as is possible, without making the foot tender, and your foot is ready for the shoe. A shoe for a dropped sole foot must be a bar shoe, thick at the toe and thin at the heels, with a wide thin bar to receive the frog pressure. To make a shoe to suit this kind of diseased feet, use a piece of iron three-quarters to one inch square according to the nature of the disease and the weight of the horse, and in making the shoes for foot founder leave all the thickness of the shoe at the toe possible, and thin the shoe at the quarters and heels to a quarter of an inch, have the bar wide and thin so as to receive all the frog pressure possible, the thicker the toe of shoe and thinner the quarters and bar at heels the better. Concave or cup the shoe out so as not to get any sole pressure.
I will cite one case of this kind, the very worst in my experience. A horse that weighed over 1400 pounds that could scarcely stand on his feet, had been treated by different veterinary surgeons and shod several times and could not keep the shoes on his feet and he was so sore that I got wet with perspiration getting two nails in one shoe and I had to stand him in a very soft place to do that. This horse would lay down in the lot most all the time and eat the grass from where he could reach it and then move to where he could reach more, he was the most hopeless subject I ever came across. I shod him according to the instruction herein prescribed, and he trotted off with his tail curled over his back like a colt. He was put to work the next morning and continued at work until sold for two hundred dollars. Elevating the heels with calks creates pain and misery to the animal.