Floating

My horses had their teeth done this week.

Floating L
It's important to have a dentist see your horse every year. A diet of grass on the range will continually polish a wild horse's teeth, which continue to grow into their senior years. When a domesticated horse eats mostly hay and grain, ridges or "points" form along the sides of their molars. These points can lead to all kinds of health and training problems. And of course uneven molars can cause TMJ strain which is an issue with L. Her dentist was the first to actually diagnose her dysfunctional TMJ.

Polishing or filing these points is called floating.

I prefer a dentist who uses hand tools (called floats, essentially, they're files). There really is no reason for this to be an unpleasant experience for them. The horses. Not the dentists. I've seen heavy handed use of power tools draw blood and heard stories of horses being uncomfortable for days after having been floated. In 16 years now I've never had a horse show signs of discomfort for any appreciable amount of time. I'm talking minutes here.

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Something about this picture strikes me as "classic".

I can't quite put my finger on why. It's almost identical to a black and white picture I took of my first horse many years ago and maybe that has something to do with it. And truth be told - I cheated, but you probably knew that. This is a recent digital image and I used Gimp to desaturate the color. I have a problem of sorts with that because the "purist" in me insists that *real* black and white pictures have to be made from black and white film.

It still doesn't have the same kind of charm that a real black and white picture has but I like it anyway.