Polish pals

By complete coincidence our 2 most recent arrivals both have Polish passports. Meet Mina (on the left) and Aleska (on the right) who have only been here a few days but are already settling in.

Both have a lameness which is worse RF, though Mina's lameness has been a longer-standing problem than Aleska's. 

So, on to the feet...

Aleska's shoes came off at the end of April, when she had her MRI but the nail holes are still visible. What jumps out at me is the uneven hairline at the coronet.  This is usually a sign of uneven loading, which was confirmed on her MRI. 

A pretty good frog but everything is a little bit twisted. She has flat feet and there is lots of separation between the hoof wall and internal structures. Now its just a case of seeing if we can help her grow better feet!

Mina arrived in reverse shoes - "normal" shoes put on back to front, with a graduated pad.  On MRI she had lots going on, with damage to the DDFT and impar ligament and navicular bone changes. 

I'm indebted to vet Chris Tufnell of Coach House Equine for the photos of Mina which he sent down before she arrived (I should add that the shoes were not his prescription!). This is the RF and - rather like Aleska  - the deviations in the hairline give a pretty good indication that her medio-lateral balance is wrong and putting stress on her limb. 

More on both of them soon, and in the meantime I am hoping Wiola will give me some key phrases in Polish (in addition to Bez Kopyt nie ma Konia, of course, which was the title she devised for the Polish edition of  "Feet First") to make the girls feel at home. Although, like Wiola, their English is probably way better than mine!