You know that saying?

The one about no hoof, no horse?  Well, I feel like that's become the theme to my life with Charlie.  As I mentioned before, I was planning on trying a new farrier because Charlie's shoes kept falling off at the 3 - 4 week mark and the old farrier lives 2.5 hrs away in Aiken and he only comes up this way every 5 weeks.  Let's just say the potential new farrier is quite possibly the worst farrier I have ever come across - nice guy just can't shoe his way out of a paper bag.  Maybe when the trauma isn't so fresh in my mind and I can laugh about the whole thing, I'll bore everyone with the details but until then, just know that this experience ranks right up there with one of the worst horse care experiences I've been through.

To right this horrible wrong, I had to call the old farrier (who I never really talked to except when he was shoeing Charlie - he comes to Janna's barn and I just show up when she tells me to) and beg him to take me back.  Fun times as I'm sure most of you know.  He was fairly nice about it considering everything but I still felt like a jerk for a myriad of reasons.  I have to take Charlie to Aiken on Thursday so Bruce, the farrier, can fix what the other idiot did to him.  And while I'm not sure it's possible to feel like a bigger jerk than I already do, I'm pretty sure that once Bruce gets a look at Charlie's feet, I will.  Just in case you hadn't figured it out, Charlie has been off since the idiot did him last Thursday.  He's not head-bobbing lame, just NQR.

Hopefully once the guilt trip's over, we can come up with a plan.  Bruce already told me he wants to put him in glue-ons (I can hear my bank account drying up at that thought) and I think that's really the way to go.  Cherie has 2 horses in glue-ons and she's a fan and all the reading I've done makes me think this will be at least part of the answer to our ongoing issues.  Not really sure if this means I need to plan on regular trips to Aiken or what but that's one of the things we're going to talk about on Thursday.

 

I think I finally have a shot where he looks as chubby as he really is!  I wish I had a picture of when I first got him - he was so skinny, he looked like a cow from behind.  He's lost a lot of muscle in his topline from all the time off. :(

 

He's been staying inside during the day under the fans because the field he's "isolated" in doesn't have much shade.  I feel bad for him because he loves being outside in the grass.  You can see here, he has way more than he can possibly eat.

Vet is coming tomorrow for bi-annual shots.  Kind of sad but my vet just posted on Facebook that he just diagnosed 2 horses with Eastern Equine Encephalomyelitis and it has basically a 100% mortality rate.  And a horse in GA was just put down due to suspected rabies.  Moral of the story is vaccinate your horses!