what a damage it can be to a horse by leaving the heels too 

 high and once in a while we find feet with low heels where 

 the bars are broken down and the walls of the heels are 

 warped and bent over, and often it makes a horse go tender 

 and as the heels look low, a blacksmith will take a shoe and 

 turn up heel calks to make up for the low appearance of the 

 heel. This is like adding fuel to fire. It is not building up, 

 it is destroying; and after heel calks are turned on to shoes 

 and applied to feet in such conditions, it is a sure case of 

 lameness. It doesn't make any difference how low such 

 heels are, to prepare them for a shoe properly is to remove 

 all the parts that are warped and broken down. Then build 

 it up again with strips of leather, between foot and shoe, 

 secure the leather with rivets to the branches of the heels 

 and adjust the shoe in such a way that the heels of the foot 

 can carry its share of the horse's weight. Or, if the frog 

 is in proper condition, use a bar shoe and thereby give the 

 heels a rest. I know you say all this takes a lot of time, 

 but that is just where we blunder so often. We never even 

 take time to think. We must take time to do things right. 

 It may look that we could spring the shoes away from such 

 heels, but that also is a bad practice, because the heels of the 

 foot would settle down to the shoe and thereby break down 

 the quarters. That would be like going from bad to worse, 

 a little extra time in taking pains is worth more than the 

 whole job of shoeing. Shoeing is not worth anything if it 

 isn't done right. The deformity of such broken heels are 

 often caused by the use of the ordinary three-calk shoe and 

 is generally found among the heavier horses. Such shoes 

 produce extra stress or pressure on the weakest part of the 

 fo.ot. Then we come across another kind of deformed heel 

 that may cause trouble to a horse's foot. The heels that 

 have caved in, between the coronary band and the lower 

 border of the walls. The bars or braces are generally firm 

 and strong and thereby the lower border of the wall of the 

 heels are kept in place, but fever at that part of the foot 



