07/06/2025
If your horse is unsound, aged, or no longer has a good quality of life and you cannot keep them, the kindest, most responsible thing you can do is euthanize them...not give them away to a stranger who âpromisesâ a good home. Euthanize.
The people who pick up these horses, whether through a giveaway post, a sale ad, or a word-of-mouth favor, donât love your horse. They donât know them. They have no emotional history. No context for their quirks, their limits, or their medical needs. That bond youâve built over the years? The memories, the care, the promises? That dies the second you hand over the lead rope.
From that moment on, your horse is just another mouth to feed. Another vet bill. Another project. And when they get inconvenient: when they canât be ridden, when the arthritis flares, when the hooves need special care or when the meds cost too much, there is no reason for that new person to keep trying. They donât owe your horse anything. And thatâs the root of the problem.
Too many horses, good horses, kind horses, horses who were once someoneâs heart, get passed down the line until they land in a place no horse should ever know. Auction pens. Kill buyers. Backyard neglect. Starvation. Loneliness. Confusion. Pain.
And do you know what I hear every time? "We had a contract." âI thought she went to a good home.â âThey promised theyâd keep him.â âThey said they had a pasture for her to live out her days.â
If you truly love your horse: if they stood steady while you learned, were a shoulder to cry on, nickered when they heard your footsteps, and showed up for you on their best and worst days, you owe them more than hope and a handshake.
You owe them peace. You owe them safety. You owe them a dignified end that is pain-free and fear-free, before the bad days outnumber the good.
And this responsibility doesnât only apply to the horses whoâve been your partners for years. Even if itâs a horse youâve just purchased, they still deserve the same compassion. A horse doesnât need to have earned your love to be worthy of a gentle ending.
All horses deserve that kindness, that dignity, and that final act of selfless care.
Itâs not selfish to make the decision to euthanize. Itâs not âgiving up.â Itâs doing what people who truly care about horses do: taking responsibility. You stay with them. You look them in the eye. And you make sure they never have to wonder why the person they trusted walked away when things got hard. Let them go with love, before the world gets to them.
