SHOEING. 



By WILLIAM DICKSON, 

 F'eterinarian to the State Farmers' Instilute of Minnesota. 



Although the subject discussed iu the 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 at- 

 tention 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 iu question, there are 

 undoubtedly res])ects 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. IsTo 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 large 

 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 Ameri- 

 can ingenuity has failed to develop anything better suited to the pur- 

 pose. That the system of horseshoeing as it obtains, even in the most 

 skillful hands, is pregnant with mischief to the foot, no one who is con- 

 versant with the facts will venture to deny. As a matter of physiolog- 

 ical 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 less that injury is; but there is no 

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