Success Stories - Page 1

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My goal is to help horses become sound. We have several horses here who came in moderately to severely unsound. All are doing extremely well under our protocol of managing diet, trimming, and exercise.

Case 1: Navicular (Joey)

Joey is a WB cross who'd been successful as a jumper until on and off lameness resulted in his career coming to an end. He was owned by a client of a vet in Florida who was also a friend of Lauren's. A great deal of money had already been spent on Joey's lameness issues when the vet asked Lauren to take a look at him. Lauren's immediate reaction was YES a lot could be done because his feet were in terrible condition. However, by this point the owners were already at the end of their emotional and financial rope now that conventional vets and farriers were out of ideas. So they offered Joey to Lauren since she was sure he could be sound again.

Lauren lept at the opportunity knowing that Joey was a very nice horse who she would not otherwise been able to affod. She saw in him her next dressage horse.

Within a year Joey's feet had made a remarkable recovery. But he was still left with body issues which resulted in him carrying himself very crooked. Lauren turned him out for the winter and treated him with AAKG/Jiagulan which is used to treat horses with DSLD. This seemed to do the trick for him because in the spring of 2008 Joey started moving like a normal horse! He is now able to be ridden soundly in the arena and on trails.

Case 2: Navicular (Chester)

- July 2007 - Sore and cranky.

- One year later - Happy to be sound!

Chester is a 14 year old QH/TB cross who has struggled with intermittent lameness for the last few years. Initially it was thought that his shoulder was the source of his lameness problems but in early 2007 Chester was diagnosed with "navicular disease". Xrays confirmed that he had signs of changes to the navicular bone. Rest and theraputic shoeing failed to bring the horse to soundness. The vet and farrier were out of ideas and were recommending that the owner consider nervectomy to keep him pasture sound. Sending Chester to the Lauren was the owner's last ditch effort to bing comfort to the horse.

When Chester arrived in July of 2007 he was shod in front and was very sore particularly on his right fore. Note how he is standing in the picture above.

It was quite obvious to us why he was sore. (see photos to the right) He had severely contracted heels, no digital cushion, no frog and a bad case of thrush which went deep into the tight crack between his heel bulbs.

We immediately removed the shoes, trimmed his long toes back and started thrush treatment. The thrush was a source of excruciating pain. You only needed to attempt to get thrush treatment into the deep crack to find out just how much it hurt him. :-( After a little time to settle in we turned him, and his buddy Harley, out with the rest of the crew to let Mother Nature do her Thing. After that we pretty much left him alone other than for feeding, trimming and thrush treatments.

Due to the severity of his pathology it took awhile for Chester to start look reasonably comfortable on a day to day basis. As of this report (Dec 2008) he is looking really really good in the pasture. He comes running at feed time and we love the way he's really reaching out confidently with that right front leg.

This photo taken in Dec 2008 shows much more open heels, a shorter toe and he actually has a frog now!