CHAPTER V. 



CONTRACTED FEET. 



Contraction probably gives shoers more trouble than any 

 other one thing- connected with shoeing. In greater or less 

 degree contraction is present in a large percentage of feet. 

 The good shoer is constantly employed in an effort to 

 guard against it, and if horse owners were as intelligent as 

 they ought to be, and careful to exercise that intelligence, he 

 would, more frequently than he does, succeed in reducing 

 the difficulty to a miniuium. The dih'erent methods em- 

 ployed by shoers to overcome this trouble are presented in 

 this chapter. 



Causes of Contraction. 



Perhaps there is no more prolific source of lameness in 

 the horse than contraction, which simply means a gradual 

 loosening of the entire hoof, chiefly in the heel, and for 

 some reason or other, generally of the fore feet. It is com- 

 monly called by horsemen " widening of the hoof," and 

 pressing unduly upon the sensitive laminae of the hoof, pro- 

 duces that peculiar lameness which so much puzzles the 

 uninitiated, being to them an invisible cause. Even the 

 so-called horse-doctors are generally completel3^ puzzled by 

 this disease when looking for the cause of lameness. There 

 is no possible criterion for fixing the appearance accurately 

 of any peculiarity of lameness consequent upon contrac- 

 tion — sometimes the lameness being very slight, while at 

 other times it is very acute, so much so as to render the 



