Re: RC: USELESS OWNERS-KIND VETS-COMPASSIONATE PEOPLE

[Merryben@aol.com]

My boarding contract has a place for the owner to check either that I can or cannot euthanize the horse in case of extreme emergency.

My friends, who run a large boarding stable near me, had an almost equal experience last weekend.  One of their boarders who had not been out in about a year, came and got her horse out of the pasture and took it up to the barn.  My friend later went up to the barn and the owner had tied the horse up to the hitching rail and cut off its tail, mane and forelock and was putting flowers on the horse.  She said that "she is going to go blind so I am having her put down today".  The horse had had a bout of some sort of eye infection about a year ago and the vet had said that some time in the future she might have problems and might go blind but the mare was a perfectly healthy 6 year old last week.  The upshot is that no amount of begging, offering to take the horse and keep it, etc., worked and the horse was euthanized that day.

In contrast, one of my boarders paid board on his rescue horse for over a year when we all knew the horse was terminal with cancer and could not be saved.  A few weeks ago the horse had started to lose weight and it became obvious that the disease was starting to get to him.  He was still a happy, sweet horse but the decision was made and my vet came out and euthanized him.  Thanks to my boarder, he lived a last year in a large pasture with other horses, was allowed get dirty, run around and just be a horse.  

What a contrast huh?

mb