Rhonda Pettus, age 10, of Nashville, Tennessee, for her question:

How do they shoe a horse without hurting him?

A horse's metal shoe, of"⁣ourse, is driven onto his foot with nails. This, you would think, is terribly painful. But the gentle animal just stands there without a wince.or murmur while the blacksmith hammers the.~shoe in place. Later, the same horse may get a small, sharp stone trapped in his hoof. This is so painful that the poor fellow cannot step down with his full weight on the foot. A little pebble can make him lame

A horse's metal shoe, of course, is driven onto his foot with nails. This, you would think, is terribly painful. But the gentle animal just stands there without a wince or murmur while the blacksmith hammers the.~shoe in place. Later, the same horse may get a small, sharp stone trapped in his hoof. This is so painful that the poor fellow cannot step down with his full weight on the foot. A little pebble can make him lame but the nails in his shoe do not bother him a bit.⁢ This is because the hoof is a horse is a very special foot. Actually it is one very specialized toe. The hard hoof is an overgrown toenail made of tough, horny material. It is a thick pad of lifeless cells that have no nerves or blood vessels. This material: is not very different from your hair and nails. You do not feel pain when you clip your nails or get a haircut. Niether does a good blacksmith hurt a horse when he nails on a shoe. But he must know just where the pads of nerveless material are. If he strikes the living tissues, the horse will be very badly hurt. If the horse chances to catch a stone between the sensitive parts of his foot and the shoe or the hard hoof, he becomes too hurt to walk.