24/06/2020
Vi går inte på järn, varför ska våra hästar behöva det?
🤔Why don’t humans wear METAL shoes?
Ok this might sound a bit ridiculous because we can’t actually nail metal shoes permanently to our feet...but why do we wear rubber soled shoes and boots and not metal?
What would happen if we tried to walk or run with metal covering the bottom of our shoes?
We wouldn’t feel at all SAFE.
We would be forced to acknowledge that the metal was slippy, non forgiving, unable to flex as we walked.
We’re not comparing horse to human foot anatomy here...we’re comparing the EFFECT of the metal on our anatomy.
As humans, if we were to wear metal shoes, we would experience a definite immediate IMPACT on our joints and soft tissues throughout our bodies, and anything above a walk would be treacherous.
We would change our gait to compensate....unnaturally.
And yet....for some reason....we feel this is totally acceptable for horses.😔
We have CONVINCED ourselves it’s absolutely fine to shoe.
Gone should be the days when people believed that, because horses had hooves which were ‘hard’, then a shoe of metal wouldn’t be much different.
It would ‘PROTECT’.
But that shoe of metal, nailed onto the hoof, stops it FLEXING, expanding and working properly, and now we know, without a shadow of a doubt, it causes pathology in hooves, and their bodies.
The fact that we even feel horses need shoes to ‘help’ the horse, is a STARK REMINDER of how the domestic world is failing horses by not acknowledging that the reason we use them, is because WE have created the sore foot, not the horse.
We have FAILED in our understanding that a sore footed horse is our creation not theirs.
A horse is a flight animal and movement and running are paramount to their very existence. A natural bare hoof has PROPRIOCEPTION...it feels the ground and sends vital feedback to the rest of the body.
Horses are CAREFUL where they place their feet and legs. If you are in any doubt about this, watch horses take time to walk around areas they’re not sure about.
They need to FEEL the ground.
It is widely acknowledged that shoes cause horses to SLIP...so studs are applied, usually only on one side of the shoe🤷♀️, causing even further disruption to the vital natural form and function of the hoof.
Put on a slippy object...then add something to try and stop it slipping. Hmmm 🤔
Shoes HARM horses. Period. They are metal. If you think they don’t, then please go and put some metal on the bottom of your rubber soled shoes.
And spend a day walking around in them. But even that wouldn’t begin to scratch the surface of the true impact of a nailed on shoe.
We wouldn’t feel the contraction. The loss of use of the back of our foot. The ATROPHY of our soft tissues over time.
But horses feel it. There is not one single shod horse on this planet that is not experiencing the NEGATIVE effect of the metal shoe.
Not one single horse. But because horses can’t ‘talk human’ we don’t ‘hear’ it. But those who know how to read BODY LANGUAGE can SEE it!
Shoes are nailed onto the foot. The foot grows CONTINUALLY, so immediately it is applied, the shoe is working against not with the hoof.
And yet even though we know all of the above...we still shoe horses with metal and nails. Saying that it helps horses, and is a kinder option than letting them walk on their own feet.
Really? 😳
If we walked around with metal on the soles of our shoes for long, we’d experience a lack of confidence and the painful REALITY of the devastating impact it would have on our bodies...and minds.
It would soon negatively impact our behaviour and our MENTAL HEALTH.
That’s why we wear rubber soled shoes and boots. Because frankly, metal would be RIDICULOUS.
So if you’re going to put hoof protection on a horse, why would you even contemplate metal over a hoof boot?
Or better still, give the horse the ability to grow its own healthy, sound hooves. Free of pain. Free of pathology.
The EXCUSES can only go on for so long. 🙊🙉🙈
Here at this magazine, we don’t make any excuses, because we believe in empowering owners to give horses their own hooves back.
👉Read ISSUE 26 IN PRINT or DIGITAL Now👉http://bit.ly/BHMIssue26
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Metal shoes WILL be obsolete one day...why not help your horse sooner rather than later!
The BHM Team ❤️