Managing a horse with chronic laminitis is hardly a one-man job. Both veterinarian and farrier expertise is required to rehabilitate and maintain these horses' feet for the best possible outcome. | Photo: Courtesy Dr. Daisy Bicking

Managing a horse with chronic laminitis is hardly a one-man job. Both veterinarian and farrier expertise is required to rehabilitate and maintain these horses’ feet for the best possible outcome.

“Successful management of these cases requires a ‘whole horse’ approach and is maximized by a co-operating veterinarian-farrier team,” said R. Scott Pleasant, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVS, director of the equine podiatry unit at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, in Blacksburg, Va. “It begins with mutual respect and understanding of each other’s areas of expertise.”

Pleasant described the veterinarian-farrier team’s specific goals while at the 2013 International Equine Conference on Laminitis and Diseases of the Foot, held Nov. 1-3 in West Palm Beach, Fla. These goals include preventing recurrent bouts of laminitis and rehabilitating and maintaining the horse’s