02/27/2024
Today I want to talk about the problem with being really good at taking care of horses:
You will have to decide when their life ends.
Not always - once in a blue moon a horse will do you the favor of tipping over quietly and instantly. I've seen it happen. It happened to our Perry last year, who was about 30 years old, and laid down and left the world in excellent weight with a shiny coat, sounder than the day he arrived, and no apparent issue that would have prompted a call to the vet.
But most of the time, when you're good enough at taking care of horses that your horses live to be 25+, you will have to make the call. Not only is this a big responsibility, but it's so hard for some people that animal control is kept busy every day with situations like horse owners who cannot accept reality and call the vet for a horse who can no longer get up on his own, or hasn't even tried for days. While you probably would make a better choice if you're here on my page - my content does tend to attract horsepeople who think mostly with their heads - I think we can all understand the emotions that make someone think, well, let's just call the fire department for help getting him up. Look, he's eating, he wants to live!
(Wanting to live does not = not wanting to die by starvation. They are two different things, even for human beings.)
Since we're mostly a senior horse sanctuary at this point, I'm going to share the guidelines we use here and maybe they will help someone else. There are other rescues with different standards, and we align with that more when it goes in the direction of "a day too soon" than months too late. This is just what we think, not necessarily the one true answer, and it's all debatable obviously because it tends to be a hot button issue -- but we need to normalize the discussion because that helps people make better and more humane choices for their animals.
Lameness: A horse can live quite happily, unridden, with a bit of chronic lameness even on a straight line - if that level of lameness is not inhibiting him from normal behavior. What's normal behavior? When the herd runs, he runs - he isn't gimping along far behind the others at a creaky trot. He still has a buck & fart in him on a cold morning. He can get down for a good roll and get up again without falling or needing assistance. He doesn't look worse than stiff like an old person would be at the walk - he isn't head-bobbing lame. He doesn't have a leg so arthritic that it looks like the letter C. He gets some pain management drugs if needed and he gets a quality joint supplement. Ideally he lives on turnout or if that's absolutely not available, someone gets him out of the stall every day for a long walk that will help him not to feel so stiff.
I saw a video from another "rescue" of a horse that was three legged lame trying to get back to the barn (on a downhill, ffs) at the most painful walk I have ever seen, and they thought it was great that he was such a "fighter." Ugh, no, he's only "fighting" because he has no way to put himself down.
Colic: Look, call it early. Either you have the money to go to the hospital, or you need to put them down if there's no improvement in a few hours. If they're really painful, that window of time is shorter. Horses have varying pain tolerances and there is absolutely the drama llama that will look like they are going to die for sure when the vet arrives and after an oiling and a walk, are perfectly fine and screaming for food six hours later. (Don't feed them. As a vet I know says, nothing ever died from not eating for 24 hours, but a lot of horses die from colic.)
Either way, you cannot screw around - get the vet out, make a decision. I do not think anybody is a bad person for not racing horses to the hospital for thousands of dollars they simply may not have any access to. We don't do it. If there's an infinite amount of money somewhere, we surely have not identified its location and we understand that many horse owners are in the same boat. A swift veterinary euthanasia is never a morally wrong choice, full stop - our duty to our horses is to prevent suffering, not make sure they live to see the next election. They don't care.
Accidents: These are hard. Your vet is going to explain to you all of the rehab options available to you -- that's their job. If a horse is 30 years old and steps in a gopher hole, do you really think a year of stall rest is how he wants to spend the last part of his life? Would you? We always have to think about the fact that a horse is designed to run with friends. If the odds are they'll never have that ability back - call it. It's going to be the right thing for both the horse and your financial situation. It absolutely pains me to see someone, often someone who doesn't have much of an income to begin with, bankrupting themselves trying to keep an animal alive. I know they are your best friend. I know death sucks. But you're not giving them a quality of life they even want, and you're annihilating your own life. It is absolutely fine to make the call.
Neurological conditions: This is a hot button for me. I cannot comprehend people keeping a horse alive who walks sideways, falls down, loses control of his hind end, etc. Please stop. A horse isn't you - he can't lie in bed comfortably, scrolling Instagram reels and watching reality television when he's unable to move around safely due to an injury or illness. It's incredibly scary for a horse to be out of balance and at risk of falling. He is a prey animal in nature - one of his intrinsic needs is being able to run away from a threat. If the neurological issues are from a disease like EPM, you can certainly try treatment but you should see improvement within a month or so if it's going to happen. If the neurological issues are from an injury and not getting any better - please, please do the right thing and put them down before they get stuck in a fence with a broken leg or neck from falling the wrong way. You do not want that to be your last memory of them.
Foals with serious problems: I could write pages on this but I already addressed some of it in my recent post about things you should know about if you're going to breed. A foal that will be permanently crippled has a very poor chance of any quality of life or of being fed and cared for and not coming to a bad end. If the vet can correct the issue with surgery, and you can afford the surgery, and it has a good chance of success, by all means go for it. But sometimes all you're doing is creating a $10,000 pasture pet that someone will have to care for forever, and the number of people who want to take care of any pasture pet (even their OWN that they used to show and compete with!) is a tiny percentage of the horse owning population and getting smaller by the day. No one enjoys putting down a foal but it's always a possible outcome when you breed your mare.
While I'm on this topic, please stop keeping mares alive long enough to give birth if something has gone horribly wrong for them. If they can't walk, put them down. I saw some moron once that had a pregnant DSLD mare in a sling after her tendons ruptured because they just had to get that baby. This is animal cruelty.
General quality of life: Sometimes there is not one specific bad thing, but a collection of things. Your elderly horse is arthritic and needs a lot to keep them comfortable day to day. They've also got Cushing's and need daily meds. Now they have a chronic eye issue. They won't take meds in food. Every day, you have a struggle trying to syringe meds into their mouth and treat their eye, while they bang you against the fence. You do all this just for them to continually rub the eye, making it worse, no matter what kind of hooded contraption you put on their head. The vet is at your house constantly, trying to patch this horse back together. You can't afford it and, worse yet, the horse isn't getting any better. At a certain point, some of them just sort of melt down - it's very common with the Cushing's horses, because that disease tends to make them prone to other infections. If there is a lot wrong, every day is a struggle to treat the issues, and there's no improvement, it may be time to make the call.
They just quit: Sometimes, without a clear diagnosis even after you spend the money for bloodwork and have carefully examined the mouth and the vitals, horses just quit. They go off food. They start staring into the middle distance. They don't interact with other horses anymore. They are borderline cranky or just dull to everything. I've seen them where they'll only eat cookies, and are even unenthusiastic about that. The life has left their eyes. We all want a diagnosis, but sometimes you are not going to get one, and you will have to call it. It's just part of being a senior horse owner. You can certainly necropsy, if you can afford it, and that may give you a clear answer, but when we see horses in this state who are not in this state due to long term starvation and neglect - if they are normal weight and well cared for but acting like this? Our experience is they are not coming back, and it is time.
What things have you seen and experienced that let you know it was time to make the call? Pictured is Orca, who is 38 and has Cushing's and looks old, but runs toward her breakfast mush like this every morning. She is making it clear she isn't done yet, and the day that changes, we'll help her out of this world into the next.
