The Wooden Shoe as an Option for Treating Chronic Laminitis

Chronic laminitis is a frustrating and often disheartening disease for veterinarians, farriers and horse owners to manage. Our ability to rehabilitate horses with laminitis, despite the type of farriery employed, is related to the severity of damage to the lamellae (Hunt 1998). For this reason, treatment failures with any given methodology are commonplace. Chronic laminitis is defined by the presence of mechanical collapse of the lamellae and displacement of the distal phalanx within the hoof capsule (Hood 1999). The various forms of displacement of the distal phalanx recognized are: dorsal capsular rotation, distal displacement (sinking) medial or lateral displacement of the distal phalanx or any combination of the above (O’Grady et al 2007a, Parks and O’Grady 2008). The most common type of displacement encountered is dorsal capsular rotation. If dorsal capsular rotation is severe, the instability of the distal phalanx combined with the weight of the horse often leads to prolapse of the sole or penetration of the distal phalanx through the sole. The wooden shoe has become another farriery option that has been found to be a consistently successful method to address dorsal capsular rotation (Fig.1)(Steward 2003; O’Grady et al 2007a). The wooden shoe allows the distal phalanx to be realigned, has all the mechanical components of other farriery systems previously advocated for the treatment of chronic laminitis yet may possess many additional advantages over previous methods used. One major advantage maybe its ability to distribute weight bearing evenly over a specified section of the foot due to its flat solid construction. […]