Founder Chronicles: Battle of the bulge

Founder Chronicles 1: Killer lameness strikes
Founder Chronicles 2: We fight back
Founder Chronicles 3: Encouragement, more remedies
When you cannot exercise, losing weight is a challenge. Unless we could reduce the known mechanical causes of Bonnie’s founder, get her to exercise, and keep her circulation going, we would be fighting a losing battle. She would waste away, or worse, fatten up just standing  around in her stall, gaining weight even on a starvation diet. Our veterinarian ordered short 10-minute hand walking on a soft, deeply plowed surface. I whipped out our John Deere 950n and tore up Pooh Lane, our spreading-composting zone. But Bonnie hated even leaving the soft sand of the stall to trek down the firmer barn aisle to get to Pooh Lane. She would pull on the lead shank like the proverbial mule and refuse to budge. We had attended the weekend horse show with other mounts, and friends stopped by our horse trailer with words of sympathy. One horse show mom suggested that we make slippers for Bonnie out of construction Styrofoam and duct tape. All we had to do was trace Bonnie’s feet, plus about a one- inch margin on the Styrofoam, cut the shape with a knife, and use duct tape for the boot. It sounded weird, but the horse show mom insisted this had worked for her old Arabian gelding. We left the show early to go to our local home construction store for supplies.
Next:  A diagnosis, more solutions