I am here to testify to the fact that horses might not all be expensive to buy, but they’re definitely all expensive to keep. Need a walking, neighing, eating, pooping example of that?

I’m relatively certain that my horses have some kind of award, just between them, to see who can spend the most money. Like instead of employee of the month, it’s Equine of the Month, except their criteria is to see who can be the biggest spendthrift and clearly the “winner” must be the one that I love most. Pretty sure they’re keeping receipts. I’m not sure how to convince them that my love can and should be measured in cookies instead of dollars.

All of this is the really long preamble to say that Henry got his new glue-on shoes put on this weekend. Somehow, despite 20 years of horse ownership and over a dozen horses, I have never had a single glue-on shoe experience. Wedges, pads, eggbars, aluminum, stud holes, clips, square toes, trailers… been there, done that. But non-metal shoes, and glue-on shoes… nope. Until now.

The GluShu’s are a favorite of my vet and farrier, and my farrier uses them on several other horses with good success, so he’s quite comfortable with them. He said that the majority of his other clients horses are pasture-kept and still manage to keep them on for 6 week cycles with no trouble, so I really friggin hope that Henry didn’t hear him say that or there’s no way in hell he’ll keep them on that long. I mean, this is the horse that managed to pull off his other front shoe IN HIS STALL last week.

But at least Henry had done part of the farrier’s job for him, so we just had to remove the 45 layers of duct tape and vet wrap (I’ve been through a lot of wrapping supplies lately and also I’m crazy) from his fronts, then lightly trim and prep his feet. Farrier sanded the outsides a little bit, checked the shape of the shoe against the shape of his foot, then cleaned the hooves thoroughly to prep for the glue. The GlueShu is vulcanized rubber but the core is aluminum, so they can be shaped slightly to the foot if needed. Henry’s feet are quite round so not much had to be done – they fit him well. On went the glue, then the shoe, and then the farrier tightly saran-wrapped the foot to let it set. I’ve definitely never before had a farrier experience that smelled like a nail salon and looked like we were wrapping up Thanksgiving leftovers. First time for everything I guess?

Henry walked off looking pretty normal, and even seemed comfortable crossing the small patch of rocks at the entrance to his turnout. He looked great, really. Instead now I was the one in pain, writing the check. Ouuuucccccchhhhhh. Hope no one wanted a Christmas present and thank goodness I’m already stocked with ramen.

I’ve left Henry alone the past couple days to let him get used to his new kicks. I did give him access to his stall’s run again, which he was super happy about. No more spinning in circles in his stall. Yesterday afternoon he came GALLOPING up to the gate in his pasture and performed one of those majorly cringe-inducing and heart-stopping sliding stops at the last second, then turned around and trotted off looking quite sound. I’ll give him a few more days before I really try to properly assess how he’s looking, but he does seem pretty comfortable and happy in turnout, at least. We shall see! For now he kinda just looks like a huge nerd. But hey… if he wants to be sound and wear nerd shoes, I’m okay with that.