12/10/2025
For the third time this year, a horse I know is being put in the ground.
Not one of my herd, but one I've worked with and whose person has put immeasurable blood, sweat, tears, time, money and energy into trying to help. At the end of the day, they could not. It is not the horse's fault. It is not the human's fault. Cards were dealt in no real fairness to anyone; the situation was what it was, and it became very clear no amount of anything was going to change it.
But what is really bothering me isn't the passing of the animal, it's what the person said to me when they called me to let me know it was happening. "I don't even want to tell anyone because somebody is inevitably going to tell me that I should have done more."
When I made the decision to euthanize my young cob several years ago, I told no one. It was a horribly painful decision after a long road of diagnostics, trial, error and the inevitable realization that he would never be A) comfortable or B) safe. A bit of time passed and word finally reached the woman I'd bought him from. My phone lit up with a string of angry, vitriolic text messages accusing me of keeping horses for convenience and disposing of them when they were no longer useful. I was told I should have sent him back to his breeder to live out his days. I was told how horrible of a horsewoman and a person I was. It was awful: at a time when I was already questioning myself, already racked with guilt, already wondering "did I do enough?", it was a deeply unkind cut.
To be plain, there is a grotesque moral superiority around "saving" horses. Around letting them live at all costs. Around taking the unwanted, the downtrodden, the cast-offs and the lucks-run-out's and turning them into "something". Sometimes that "something" is a ribbon-adorned show animal. Sometimes that "something" is just a well-fed pasture ornament. Either way, there are people who delight in telling you all about how bad the horse was before and everything they did to fix it.
And then tell you why you didn't do enough.
And the reality is: all of it is about them. It has nothing to do with the horse. The horse is just a vehicle, a vessel, a container for their ego.
We are not helping horses by spending extraordinary amounts of money on this's and that's to keep them going through significant health issues.
We are not doing it for the horses when we "rescue" troubled souls only to leave them troubled because we can't find it within ourselves to help them change how they feel about the world.
We are not here for the horse if we can't take off the rose colored glasses and recognize that not every animal can be saved. Not every animal can be fixed. Not every animal can have a quality of life worth living.
I have dug the holes. I have cried into manes. I have walked other people's horses on that last trip because they couldn't bring themselves to do it. I have spoken with vets in support of making that decision. I have been the listening ear on those phone calls when someone just needs to hear that they are doing the right thing. That they've done enough.
I will never question someone's decision to perform this final act for a horse, because it is truly FOR the horse.
