Atrophied frog

(A healthy frog.)

As evident in last post's pics where Bud's frog completely decompressed under pressure of the frog pad, her frog is likely atrophied. I got to thinking and this is likely the reason why she is sound in the boots (which provide support for this underdeveloped muscle) and takes a while before she gets sore out of the boots.

The frog is a muscle, designed to absorb impact to the hoof. If the muscle isn't properly conditioned, this can become quite painful. Just like when a limb on a human comes out of a cast. It can take quite a while to rebuild the muscle to regain normal function.

Buttercup has been put on isoxsuprine to help build her heels in addition to her hoof boots. In the last few weeks, I feel like I've seen an improvement to the sturdiness of her frog, like it is starting to push back. Now it needs to build up.

Here is what her hooves look like as of a few days ago:

Left-


Right-

Maybe I'm seeing things, but I like to think we are in a positive direction. I have also purchased some EasyBoot Edge boots for our handwalks. I will put in a soft, green frog pad for those boots to continue to support the frog. I just can't compare these pics to first pic in this post – that's rather depressing!