Our dogs look forward to farrier visits. I think they mark it on their little doggy calendars, in fact. When the farrier visits, he trims all eight of our horses’ hooves in neat slices, just perfect for gnawing. This to me is disgusting. Mikki and I pick up the shavings but invariably one or two get by us and a few days later we see one of our dogs happily chewing on it. They must be good, too, because our dogs will protect this illicit snack with their lives. This can’t be healthy for them, right? I’m sure hooves carry all kinds of nasty bacteria dogs shouldn’t be ingesting. But then again as much as I love dogs, I realize they are pretty gross. I mean how do you reason with something that will eat its own barf and dig “Almond Roca” out of the cat litter box for a particularly chewy treat? Can horse hooves really be worse than poo and week-old garbage?

Our worst offender is our older Jack Russell terrier. He is a hoof aficionado. This last batch he got into didn’t settle too well in his tummy and we got to see what it looked like partially digested…on our living room carpet. Pretty gross. But that’s the dog theme…gross.

Do you let your dog(s), if you have any, munch on horse hoof trimmings?