|
|
|
Horses Section
Note from Margaret
Miller: Jessica's response to the question posed in her newsletter
(reprinted below) is one of the most beautifully written letters I've ever read
regarding owner responsibility and difficult decisions. I've read it over
and over and and wish it could be required reading for anyone who owns, or is
thinking about owning, an animal. If you're interested in joining her
subscriber-supported newsletter, there is information at the bottom of this
page. If you're interested in copying or reprinting this newsletter to
share with others at your humane society, please follow the instructions, also
at the bottom of this page.
***
Jessica Jahiel's
Newsletter #3211 on Rescue Societies and Owner Responsibility
(originally published in her
newsletter on 02/16/02)
The following is reprinted in its
entirety by permission of Jessica Jahiel:
>From: Ellyn
> >Subject:
rescue society won't take my horse
>
>Dear Jessica, I am sitting
here just about screaming because I am so
>angry. I hope you can
help me understand what is going on. I have an old
>horse, I don't
know exactly how old he is but he is older than thirty. He
>is blind
and doesn't have many teeth left. This winter he got very thin
>and
looks neglected but he isn't, he's just old so he looks like
a
>skeleton, a lot of old horses do, and he lies down all the time
which is
>normal for old horses I guess. But here is what I
did.
>
>I called the horse rescue society and asked them to take him
because he
>needs help and I think he would be happier in another
home. My husband and
>I both have jobs, we have three kids and five
other horses and I just
>don't have time to take care of this horse
in a fancy special way. But I
>love him and we are not going to kill
him just because he is old and thin!
>But that is what the horse
rescue people basically told me to do when I
>called them, first
they tried to talk me in to feeding him all this
>expensive stuff or
make "soup" for him, whoever heard of a horse eating
>soup, they
must be crazy.
>
>And then when I explained we didn't have the time
or money for a lot of
>vet calls and special vitamins (or making
soup!) I wanted to give him to
>them and told them I would sign him
over, they could keep him or find him
>a good home, they wouldn't
take him even though I said it was okay if they
>couldn't find him a
good home I would understand if they had to put him down.
>
>They
basically told me that I should put down my own horse. That is
just
>so cruel it is unbelieveable. How could anyone say something
like that to
>a person who just loves her horse and wants what is
best for him? I am not
>the kind of person who would just have a
horse put down, but now I don't
>know what to do. What kind of
rescue place won't save a horse like this? I
>feel like I ought to
just take him over there late one night and leave him
>so they would
have to look after him or find him a good home. He used to
>be a
good horse. Can you help me?
>
>Ellyn
Hi
Ellyn!
First, take a deep breath, and calm down. There isn't really any
reason for you to be angry with anyone. You don't say where you live, so I don't
know which rescue organization you called, but I'm very familiar with the way
good rescue organizations work, so I can probably tell you a little bit about
what the people at the rescue organization were thinking.
You need to
understand that horse rescue organizations are set up to RESCUE horses. When
horses are abused and/or neglected and the rescue organization gets to know
about it, someone from the organization will usually come out and talk to the
horse's owners. Let's make up an imaginary situation, and say that somebody a
few miles away from you bought several horses and put them in a little paddock,
and then lost interest in the horses, for whatever reason. Those horses are
starving, they've eaten all the grass, they've eaten the bark off the tree in
the paddock, and when someone notifies the rescue organization and a
representative comes out to look at the horses, he sees that not only are they
walking skeletons, they are BARELY walking because their feet are very long and
turned up at the toes - which shows that the farrier hasn't been there in
years.
Still with me? Okay. Obviously, these imaginary horses NEED HELP.
The aim of the rescue organization, though, is not just to take horses away from
people, it's to make conditions better for the horses, and their FIRST move will
be to try to make things better by convincing the horses' owner to treat them
better. So our imaginary person now goes and knocks on the door, meets the
owner, and explains who he is and that the organization is worried about the
horses. He explains the basics of horse care - because many horse-owners don't
KNOW what a horse's basic requirements are. Then he says something like "I'll be
back in two days, and I'll need to see that the farrier has been here, and I'll
need to see that the horses have food and water." At this point, the horse's
owner can clean up his act and keep his horses - if the rescue organization
representative comes back and the farrier is working on the horses' hooves and
the horses have access to hay and water, the rep will probably say something
like "Good going, we'll be back in a week or so to be sure that everything is
still going well." If, however, the horses are still starving and there is no
evidence of any improvements, the horses may be impounded and taken to the
rescue organization's facility. Eventually, some of the horses will be nursed
back to health; some may not be strong enough to get healthy again.
Okay,
that's an impoundment - a rescue. Now, let's look at your situation, which is
completely different.
You aren't ignorant about horses - you know what
they need, and you know that your very old horse isn't doing well. You have
other horses that are doing fine, you're a responsible person with a husband and
three kids and a job and a farm - so it's just THIS horse that's a problem.
Since your other horses are fine, it's a safe bet that there is horse food on
the place and that you do feed your horses. Since your old horse is missing a
lot of teeth, it's also a safe bet that he isn't able to chew his food
properly,
which means that he isn't able to digest it properly either -
and because old horses, like very young horses, need more and better food to
stay healthy, what you have is a horse that (a) has access to food, but (b) is
going downhill steadily. Your old horse is doing very badly, but it's unlikely
that any rescue organization would be able to take your horse away from
you.
What a rescue organization WOULD be able to do is just what your
rescue society did - someone from the organization would (1) offer suggestions
about how you might be able to get your horse into better condition, and then
would (2) suggest euthanasia in the event that the horse is too far gone to
respond to the supplements and feed. And by the way, "soup" - or slurry as I
call it - is very easy to make (just mix complete pelleted feed into a bucket of
warm water) and very palatable to old horses. Your horse
can drink his
meals instead of chewing them - he'll get more out of them, and it's really not
much trouble. If you have five other horses to feed, you can pour the warm water
into a bucket full of pelleted feed, then feed the other horses, and by the time
that's done, the slurry will be ready. It only takes a few minutes for the
pellets and warm water to become "soup".
And now we get to the real
problem - those few minutes are minutes that you truly believe you can't spare!
You are very busy, your husband is busy, your kids are probably busy too, with
school and soccer and other such activities. You don't have to spend hours each
day with your horses; healthy, well-maintained horses can spend years living
happily in a field. As long as they have room to move, equine companionship,
grazing and fodder, and they get regular dewormings and regular attention from
the vet and the farrier, they can live happy lives even if you never spend any
time with them. But it's different when a horse, because of illness or injury or
old age, is no longer healthy. That horse is going to need a different type or
level of care, including much more personal attention, if it's going to be
"well-maintained". Your old horse is at that point, has probably been at that
point for some time now, and it's up to you to decide what you will do about
it.
It's not up to a rescue society to accept a horse as a permanent free
boarder when the situation is simply that the horse is no longer wanted by its
owners. It's the owner's responsibility - YOUR responsibility - to try to make
life better for your horse, or to have him put down. It's not very realistic to
expect someone else to be willing, much less eager, to take on your elderly,
blind horse in need of special care and feeding. After all, you've had him
forever, you remember him when he was healthy and young and sound and sighted
and had his teeth and could be ridden, you have a HISTORY with this horse, you
remember him when "he used to be a good horse", you say you love him, and yet -
you don't feel that you can manage to take on those chores yourself.
The
problem, Ellyn, is that both of those options are open to YOU, and both are YOUR
responsibility. This is YOUR horse. You can't say "I'm too busy to do what's
right, I'll just get the rescue society to adopt him". It doesn't work that way.
The rescue society is there to save horses that are starving
and dying
because people are cruel or ignorant or just don't care; there is a LOT of that
work to do, and it keeps most rescue societies busy full-time and sometimes more
than full-time. The rescue society isn't there to serve as the equivalent of a
free nursing home/hospice for elderly, infirm animals whose owners don't want to
be bothered with them anymore and don't want to make the decision to have them
put down.
You need to decide what you want to do. If you want to keep
this horse alive, by all means implement the suggestions you got from the rescue
society. If you take a long hard look at the horse and realize that he is too
old and painful to enjoy his life, and that a horse that can't walk comfortably
or eat properly is a horse with no quality of life left, then you'll need to
make the decision to have him put down. Again, this isn't anyone else's
responsibility - it's yours. You gave this old horse a loving home, and he's had
a long life - but it sounds as though he has reached the point where "longer"
isn't "better".
Instead of trying to find someone else to take the horse,
call your vet and either work out a feeding plan (surely with five of you living
on the farm, the horse could be given a bucket of slurry twice a day by
SOMEONE), or, if that's just not practical or the horse is already too far gone,
figure out how and when to give your old horse the very last gift you can give
him: an easy and dignified death. If you can have the horse put down at your own
farm, that would be easiest for him; if you can't, then having your vet put him
down at the local veterinary hospital would be the next best choice.
I
know it's hard to give up a horse you love, but you have to think about the
horse, not about yourself. If this horse's life isn't worth living, don't force
him to live it. In this case, there are two ways of trying to escape the
horse-owner's responsibilities. One is to just let the horse get thinner and
more painful until he eventually dies - that's not acceptable. The other is to
try to make someone else do what we know WE need to do ourselves - that's not
acceptable either. Our horses get older, our lives change, sometimes we run out
of options, sometimes the right thing to do is the thing that makes us cry, but
when we have animals in our lives, we can't escape our responsibilities - and we
shouldn't try.
And speaking of that - taking the horse to the rescue
society late at night and abandoning him there is not a good idea, and I think
you already realize that. Think about your horse: Where is the kindness in
putting your old horse into a trailer and pushing him into an unfamiliar field,
at night, with horses he doesn't know? That would be traumatic even for a young,
healthy horse, but for an old, blind horse .... don't even THINK about it. It
would be too cruel - and (something else you need to consider) it would also be
illegal, and there would probably be some legal repercussions. At the least, you
could be arrested for trespassing. There might be fines... believe me, it will
be less expensive and less
inconvenient for you, and less painful and
confusing for your horse, if you simply arrange to have him put down. Dropping
him off and running isn't the answer.
Let me give you an analogy. If
someone comes to you and says "I have a load of old tires I want to get rid of,
you have a farm, lots of space here, so can I dump them on your farm?" you're
almost certainly going to say "No". If that person comes to your farm late at
night and dumps the tires ANYWAY, what will you do in the morning - say "Oh,
look, kids, we've got a lot of tires, what fun!"? I don't think so. You're far
more likely to ring the sheriff and complain, and the person who did the dumping
will be in legal
trouble - and will still be responsible for his tires.
Even if you can understand why someone would want to avoid paying recycling or
dumping fees to get rid of unwanted materials, it's that person's responsibility
to do so, and he can't expect to get away with dumping his unwanted property on
your land and expecting you to go to the inconvenience and expense of having it
removed.
You probably haven't thought of it in that way, and of course a
horse is not a load of tires, but still... this is effectively what you are
doing when you try to make the rescue society take over your responsibilities
and your expenses for your horse. Neither the idea nor the midnight drop-off is
even close to acceptable, so don't go there.
I'll bet that if you ring
the rescue society again and say "I think it's time for me to have my horse put
down, can you help me?", they'll be able to give you some help. The problem you
had before wasn't that they gave you the wrong answer, the problem was that you
asked them the wrong question. Ask them how you can help your horse out of his
painful life with the least inconvenience and expense to yourself - they'll
understand that, and they'll be able to advise you. If all the horse-owners like
yourself look after their horses well and give them a good death when the time
comes, that lets the rescue societies do what they are there to do - give advice
to people like yourself who really just need information, and keep the money and
stall and pasture space for the horses that are existing under horrible
conditions of abuse and neglect, and actually need to be RESCUED, with all that
implies.
Your horse doesn't need to be rescued - he just needs his
caring, responsible owner to do what she needs to do. You're not doing a bad
thing by having your old horse put down if it's the right time to put him down -
on the contrary, you're being a good owner ALL the way to the end. I know it's
not easy to let a horse go, but if you keep horses until they are very old,
there does often come a time when you need to do what's best for the horse, even
if it's painful for you.
Jessica
HORSE-SENSE is a
subscriber-supported newsletter. If you would like to help
support
HORSE-SENSE, please visit the website for information. Thank
you!
===========================================================================
Jessica
Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter
http://www.horse-sense.org/
Copyright (C)
2002. Jessica Jahiel, Holistic Horsemanship(R)
===========================================================================
Materials
from Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter may be distributed and copied for
personal, non-commercial use provided that all authorship and copyright
information, including this notice, is retained. Materials may not be
republished in any form without express permission of the
author.
===========================================================================
jjahiel@prairienet.org
| Jessica Jahiel, Ph.D.
Voice: (217) 684-2570 | * Author * Clinician *
Lecturer *
http://www.prairienet.org/jjahiel/ | Holistic Horsemanship
(R)
============================================================================
|
If you shop at Pick ‘N Save and aren’t already enrolled in the Pick ‘N Save Advantage® WE CARE donation program, please consider choosing ENAH as your charity of choice. It’s easy to sign up at Pick ‘N Save’s Service Desk and the program is free. Once signed up, every time you shop with your Advantage Saver’s Club card, Pick ‘N Save will donate a percentage back to ENAH. Our organization number is 208875.