SHOEINC;. 



By WILLIAM DICKSON, 

 Veterinarian to the State Farmers' Institute of Minnesota. 



Although the subject discussed iu tlie present chapter may not, 

 strictly speaking, be entitled to a place in a category of the ailments 

 to which horseflesh is heir, bad and indifferent shoeing are such pro- 

 lific sources of both disability and disease in the noblest of all our 

 dumb animals, that no excuse is necessary in claiming for it equal 

 attention at the hands of those interested. 



It has sometimes been asserted that the history of every horse is a 

 record of human endeavor to mar his utility. While the accuracy of 

 such a sweeping assertion may fairly be called in question, there are 

 undoubtedly respects in which the horse in domestication is very often 

 the victim of his owner's ignorance, indifference, or even mistaken 

 kindness, and in no particular is this more strikingly conspicuous than 

 in the ordinary treatment of organs so vitally essential to his useful- 

 ness as his feet. No horseman questions the truth of the aphorism 

 "no foot, no horse," and yet in no portion of that animal's economy 

 has he suffered so many wrongs, or as a natural consequence endured 

 so much uncalled-for suffering, as in his feet, and to shoeing a very larcre 

 proportion of these evils is, beyond all doubt, directly or indirectly 

 referable. 



Unfortunately, under certain conditions, shoeing is an almost un- 

 avoidable consequence of the horse's domestication, and, although we 

 may have no wish to uphold the traditional methods, we are driven 

 to the conclusion that an artificial protection of some kind for the 

 horse's foot is very frequently one of the penalties which civilization 

 inexorably exacts. That the ordinary iron shoe is the best and least 

 hurtful means that could be devised, I am reluctant to admit; but, 

 so far, even American ingenuity has failed to develop anvthing better 

 suited to the purpose. That the system of horseshoing as it obtains, 

 even in the most skillful hands, is pregnant with mischief to the foot,' 

 no one who is conversant with the facts will venture to deny. As a 

 matter of physiological fitness the shoe and its mode of attachment 

 are utterly indefensible. Each time a horse is shod — every nail 

 driven—means so much injury to the foot. The better the job the 

 5961— HOR 18 545 



