Working with Ben Horse

Ben has a sore foot. So sore that he is limping on it. We discovered this as we moved him into the round pen to do some work with him. The hoof in question, the right front, needed to be worked. "Worked" means that someone has to come up to the horse on his uncomfortable side reach down to his fetlock, say "foot" and "catch" Ben's foot as he lifted it. Then this person has to maneuver the foot between his or her own legs so that the hoof can be trimmed and clean to reduce the pain. Ben had very had his feet worked before. Once before he was hurting I was able to reach down to his fetlock and he lift, but did nor give, his foot and this was on his comfortable side. So we had to teach Ben a whole bag of new tricks. First we worked on getting him to allow someone to come up on his uncomfortable side. This took some doing. When a horse doesn't respond favorably the he is run in order to reenforce the social dominance you have over him. Running a horse with a hoof injury fells terrible. As he goes round and round you can see his pain as he staggers on his bad hoof. After about five or six attempts we got him to allow David around on his side. Than began the work of teaching him to give his foot.We had tried this once before and all we accomplish was David getting his butt bite. This is a difficult situation because it is very hard not to laugh. After about 5 or more attempts with running Ben gave his foot (and no biting). David than work his foot cutting back part of a split hoof and removing as much manure that had become packed in has he could. This seems to have mad life better for Ben but for the time being he is on training hiatus.