HORSESHOEINC. 



195 



of the froo:, form of the shoe, wear of the shoe, and the number and 

 distribution of the nails. Does the shoe fully cover the entire lower 

 bordei" of the wall i or is it too narrow, or tittetl so full on the inside 

 that it has jriven rise to interferin";? or has the shoe l>een nailed on 

 (•looked ( or has it become loose and shifted i is it too short, or so wide 

 at the enils of the branches a.s not to support the buttresses of the 

 hoof^ Does the shoe correspond with the form of the hoof? Are 

 the nails distributed so as to interfere as little as possible with the 

 expansion of the (|uarters? are there too many ^ are they too larjije? 

 driven too "fine" or too hijjh ^ Those arc (juestions which the 

 observer should put to himself. 



Note carefully the wear of the old shoe. It is the unimj)eachable 

 cviilence of the manner in which the hoof has been set to the ground 

 since the shoe was nailed to it, and gives valuable "pointers'' in lev- 

 cliniT the hoof. Wear is the effect of friction between the shoe and the 



Ku;. (i. -a, Sldo view of foot witli the fooiaxis lnokcn backwaril as a rosiiU of too long a 

 toe. The amount of horn to be removed from the toe In order to strftl^hten the foot- 

 axis l8 denoted l>y a dotted line ; b, side view of a properly balanced foot, with a 

 straljfht foot-axis of de.siral)le slant ; c, side view of stumpy foot with foot-axis broken 

 forward, ua a result of overgrowth of the quarters. Tin- amount of horn to l>e removed 

 in order to straighten the foot-axis is shown by a dotted line. 



ground at the moment of contact. Since the properly leveled hoof 

 is .set flat to the ground, the "grounding wear" of a shoe should be 

 uniform at every point, though the toe will always show wear due to 

 scouring at the moment of '' breaking over." Everything which 

 tends to lengthen the stride tends also to make the " p-ounding 

 wear" more })ronounced in the heels of the shoe, while all cause*> 

 which shorten the stride — as stiffening of the limbs through age, 

 overwork, or disease — bring the grounding wear nearer the toe. 



An exce])tion should l)e noted, however, in founder, in which the 

 grounding wear is most pronounced at the heels. 



If one l)ranch of the shoe is found to be woiii much thiiiuer than 

 the other, the thinner branch has either been .set too near the middle 

 line of the foot (fitted too close), where it has been bearing greater 

 weight while rubbing against the ground, or. what is much more 

 often the case, the section of wall above the thinner l)ranch has been 



