Could you take the ULTIMATE responsibility for your horse?

[TrueColours]

Over on a thread on the COTH board a poster was talking about her mare, when foaling, that displaced her intestines and they came out with the foal (she was eviscerated) and of course the mare had to be euthanized but it took the vet 45 minutes to get there and during that time, the mare must have been in incredible pain, you have an orphan foal to now deal with and the owner must have been going through agony herself watching all of this unfold.

A comment was made by an industry professional who teaches repro courses that:

Unfortunately, it "does" happen.

It's horrific to witness, to say the least.

It most commonly occurs when there has been some sort of dystocia, but that's not an absolute, either. It is one of the reasons that we teach how to euthanize a horse at our courses....waiting for the vet to arrive when half your horses guts are hanging out the back end can be an eternity.

I have mulled this viewpoint over a lot over the last few days and I am wrestling with whether or not I agree with her opinion to be very honest ...

I think that I would be perfectly (emotionally) capable of giving my mare a massive dose of banamine or Dormosodan to sedate and make her as comfortable as possible until the vet did arrive, but to make the ultimate decision to euthanize her myself would be tough for SO many reasons, namely - a) emotionally - I am not sure I could do it, b) if the horse was covered by insurance I believe they would NOT pay out if you - as the lay person - made the decision to euthanize the horse and c) I would die. Simply die, if the vet even HINTED that perhaps it wasnt as bad as I thought it was, and PERHAPS the mare could have been saved through surgical intervention, etc

I am pretty certain if a friend had the medication on hand and asked me to euthanize their horse and I KNEW it was a hopeless case, I am pretty certain that I could do it for them, but I am also 99% certain that I wouldnt be able to do it for one of my own horses ...

What do you all think? Could you make this "ultimate decision" for your horse if it came right down to it? Or would you sit and wait and bawl your eyes out waiting for the vet to arrive instead, however long that might take watching your poor horse deteriorate and suffer before your eyes???

[majxmom]

Regular readers of this forum already know that this situation DID happen to me. I was very lucky in that my vet was there in only 12 minutes. In that 12 minutes, believe me, a lot happened. I never, ever considered having to take a knife or something and cutting my mare's throat, because it was a frantic, violent struggle. I was trying very hard to leap close to her and jump on her neck to keep her down, but I never got close. Her feet were waving around everywhere every time she threw herself down, and when she jumped up, she was out of her mind and wouldn't have known me to not crash over me. Thinking up ways to kill her were not in my mind at the time.

The key to not having to consider a mortal measure was this: I could hear the blood running out of her just like a garden hose. So I knew without having to think about it for too long that she was absolutely going to expire, and that she would go down and lose her ability to fight very soon. There was so much extreme stuff going on, I didn't have time to agonize. At the most my brain was going, "How is this happening? How am I dealing with this? My God..."

When the vet arrived, I finally jumped on her neck. I felt her legs whistle past my head several times. It's a miracle I wasn't knocked out. Somehow my incredible vet found the vein in the dark in moments and injected a sedative, and then she slowly quieted down. It took a long time because the loss of blood meant there was much less circulation.

We hustled the orphan foal into an SUV and hauled him to an equestrian center a mile away so that I would have a crew to help take care of him. You need a crew! I was more exhausted than I will ever be again in my life. Of course, I shared a lot of stories with some of the ladies there, and one of them told me this story:

She was training for endurance rides, and took her horse up onto a mini-mountain around the Bay Area, Mt. Diablo. They weren't doing anything unusual or risky, but her horse stepped down on a slope and snapped its leg off like a race horse. Then he jumped to his other leg, and snapped that one off, too. She is now on a mountain next to her horse with two snapped-off legs. Thank God she was riding with someone else. That person took off running for a ranger station. They responded a long time later with an armed officer. That fellow refused to use his weapon to kill the horse because of rules, and would not surrender his weapon to her to use it, which she was willing to do. HOURS went by. It took forever for this horse to die, which he finally did of blood loss before they got a vet up there.

No matter how bad I thought my situation was, it was NOTHING compared to that. At least I had medical help available, and it all happened within about 20 minutes. I still sob for that lady. If there is something worse,I can't imagine it, sitting on your mortally crippled horse for hours trying to calm him while people in authority stop you from helping him.

[TrueColours]

OMG majxmom I am getting goosebumps reading your story on your mare and the other story about that poor horse. And getting totally teary and emotional just thinking about "what if that had been me???"

I couldnt imagine that, not in my worst nightmare. Im sure that while you didnt even have a second to think - you simply reacted and adrenaline kept you going, that other poor lady had hours to think and agonize and watch in horror over what was happening.

{{{HUGS}}}

HUGE {{HUGS}}} for what you went through ...

[Sam]

If it's a choice between waiting for the vet while watching the horse suffer or doing it myself... this is why I own a gun. I will not ever watch an animal of mine suffer again. Insurance is not and should never be a consideration of the animal is in pain.

[magic code]

We've also had to do this with a mare who ruptured foaling. Couldn't get a vet out so we took her out back and shot her. That was one of the more hellish nights of my life.

[gotpaints]

If it was an injury that I KNEW my horse couldn't recover from (i.e. a broken leg like Ruffians) I'd do it. Insurance would be the last thing on my mind, who cares if they won't pay me. My horse is in pain and is fatally injuried, I'm going to end her pain as quickly as possible.

[Supernova]

I was in a situation a few years ago at a farm where I rented stalls. It wasn't my horse but belonged to a good friend. He was turning horses in and I was inside the barn cleaning my own stalls. It was a cover-all barn where half of it had stalls in it and the other half didn't have walls, it was open for hay and tractor storage.

Unbeknownst to us, one of his mares got loose from her paddock. We heard the galloping hooves going around the barn and then a loud crack against the outside of the wall of the barn. We ran into the open side of the barn and noticed one of the high-tension wires that was used to hold the roof on was broken and dangling.

We found the mare on the other side of the barn. The wire had cut her leg clean off. It was a terrible sight as she didn't know what had happened and was still attempting to walk on it. I held onto her and tried to keep her still while he ran to the house to get his gun. It probably only took him no more than 5 minutes to get back but it felt like an ETERNITY. She had already lost massive amounts of blood so she was quite calm and stood there nicely.

She would every once in a while try to put her weight down on the leg and I remember lifting her with all my strength to try to keep her off of that side. It was the most bizarre feeling knowing that the live animal you were hugging was going to be dead in a few minutes. Of course in this situation there was no alternative, and whether it was my horse or his it had to be put down.

[Mood Swings]

OMG! These stories are so gruesome I can only imagine what any of you were going through. . .

In horrible situations when an animal is suffering (especially my own) I tend to panic myself. I have seen many horrific injuries and I know that if a vet was hours away and there was absolutely no hope for the animal I would be capable of ending their suffering (however difficult it may be).

I know someone who was trail riding with a friend when her mare caught her leg on a large branch, the branch severed her femoral artery. They tried desperately to stop the bleeding but to no avail. Luckily the police had no qualms about ending the mares suffering as the vet could not get there in time

[halfpint23]

God.... horrible things that happen to our horses - and to us.

TB mare foaling, bad hip lock on the foal halfway out - and she went totally ballistic, crashing around. Beat the baby to death on the walls of the stall, finally hit her own head hard enough to knock herself stupid, and we (farm manager and I, who was Asst' manager at that time) were finally able to sedate her. Vet got out about half an hour later, and we knocked her all the way down to pull out the dead foal.

On my farm, Rule #1 is ALWAYS carry a knife - not a weenie pocket knife, one that's capable of cutting anything you may need to, be it rope or flesh. Rule #2 is keep heavy wire cutters damn handy near every door - you never know when you will need to grab them and run like heck to cut something or somebody out of a mess. (like the neighbors idiot horse out of their idiotic fence) Rule #3 Keep .357 S&W loaded and ready at all times. A .22 just doesn't cut it unless you can make a precise shot.

Damn the insurance, BTW. I keep major medical on the young stud, but if he was mortally injured I would not hesitate to give him that 130 grains of lead.

[aurora]

Yeah, I wouldn't wait for the vet. A shot to the head with a powerful rifle will kill them instantly. We've had to do it, its not pleasant but it is better than having them suffer.

[majxmom]

OMG majxmom I am getting goosebumps reading your story on your mare and the other story about that poor horse. And getting totally teary and emotional just thinking about "what if that had been me???"

I couldnt imagine that, not in my worst nightmare. Im sure that while you didnt even have a second to think - you simply reacted and adrenaline kept you going, that other poor lady had hours to think and agonize and watch in horror over what was happening.

{{{HUGS}}}

HUGE {{HUGS}}} for what you went through ...

Thanks, Truecolors. From reading the rest of this poor thread, a lot of people have gone through these things as well. Like Gretchen Jackson said, "Grief is the price we pay for love." There's always someone who has a worse story than yours.

[Maven]

I watched my father put down a horse with a gun. I dont own a gun and all my mares are boarded at commercial farms or at his farm, but he knows he has the "ok" to do it if he sees fit.

[RavenSuesMom1]

I could ... and my gelding is boarded at a friend's and they know that if need be, they have my ok - but it would most likely take an hour at least for a vet to get here if not much longer .. we have very few equine vets in the area.

[Roguelet]

We did once. It was not an easy thing to do, but it was an easy choice to make, if that makes any sense.

It was one of our favorite mares, and she had problems that had been progressing. We were trying to make her comfortable long enough to deliver the foal she was carrying... another few weeks would've done it. We were in constant contact with the vet during this time and we were confident that she was comfortable and that was good enough for us.

Then she took a turn for the worse one day, and we were talking to the vet about options; trying to decide what to do, when she decided for us. She took another major turn for the worse a few hours later. We were on the phone with the vet again pretty much when it happened, and we told him we were done.

She was not in any condition for us to take her to him by that point, but he was on his way to an emergency and the other vet was in surgery or something, and it was going to be a long time before we could get anyone out here. Using a gun was without a doubt the most humane thing to do, and it took about 30 seconds to make that decision. The vet, by the way, totally agreed with us on that issue. He had no more desire than we did to allow the mare to suffer for that long when the end result would be the same.

[summerhorse]

If it's a choice between waiting for the vet while watching the horse suffer or doing it myself... this is why I own a gun. I will not ever watch an animal of mine suffer again. Insurance is not and should never be a consideration of the animal is in pain.

Ditto. And a vet report should prove that there was no other choice in case of insurance. Or not burying the horse if the insurance person wants to see it to be sure.

Anyone out on a long trail like that lady was should carry a gun (and a permit if required!) or a big sharp knife just in case something like that happens. Cutting that horse's throat would have been kinder and quicker (about 3 minutes, maybe 10 if it was not headed downhill) than letting it die of shock. It goes without saying that the person should know how to use either one properly! It is ridiculous that ranger didn't shoot the horse, that's what they are there for! Why did he even come and bring a gun??