I see myself as a horseman. I hope I am one, but maybe I'm not, yet. I aspire to be a horseman, that's for sure. To me, horsemanship is the art of riding, working with, caring for and being in relationship with the horse. A horseman studies that art. This month I'm going to talk about one of the more uncomfortable aspects of being a horseman: playing god.
This is the part of horsemanship that requires us to decide when one of our equine partners dies - when we decide the last day of that horse's life. I think if we're a horseman, that it's going to be part of the deal. If we have one or more of these fantastic creatures in our lives, we need to be prepared to make that most difficult of decisions - to end that animal's life.
I need to tell you something here. This is a tough subject, and you may not agree with me on a philosophical level. That's okay. This is about personal philosophy and personal responsibility. I wish this subject wasn't part of the deal, but it is. This is the world we've volunteered to live in. If we own a horse, we may have to play god someday.
Like any other crisis that we know might hit us, like wild fires, hurricanes, floods or tornadoes, we need to have a crisis plan. When we're in the middle of the crisis is not the time to try to develop the plan. We won't be thinking straight, so we need to have that plan in place so we can just follow it.
Same here, in a horse care crisis. We need to know what we consider to be our maximum dollar amounts to be spent to save each horse we own. We need to know how long we're willing to work toward getting the horse sound or healthy. We need to know how far it is to our best local surgical facility and know how to get a horse in there (it's usually by referral). We need to have transportation to said facility and our horse needs to know how to load, even under stress. We need to know if we were to put a horse down, where we would do it and who we would ask to help us. I'm here to tell you that you likely won't be able to do it on your own. So plan to have supportive, non-judgmental friends who you can call who will drop everything to help you. Discuss this with them so they understand what will be needed. Have a plan. I hope you'll never need to use it.
It was baby Henry who took the long walk recently, out to the oak grove where he now lays under the sand.
As prepared as I'd schooled myself to be in the event of this kind of crisis, preparation didn't make it easy. That's why I feel it's important for us to talk about this. A good horseman is prepared and does what needs to be done for the good of the horse. What's good for the horse may or may not be good for us. That's why we need to be prepared. Emotion and stress will muddy the data coming to us in those moments. It's difficult to impossible to think straight. But life and death hangs in the balance.
The details of Henry's Long Walk are not important, but suffice to say that a tiny little (what looked like) scrape turned out to be a horribly aggressive infection of the hock joint. When my vet, Nicole, looked at the hock the first time and took his temperature, she looked at the thermometer and said, "How much do you love this horse?"
I spent that sleepless night tossing and turning and running through scenarios in my mind. I checked bank and credit card balances. In the morning, I gathered more information by talking to my local vet again and then talking to the surgeon at the regional hospital facility. When all the information had come in, it was clear that Henry's prognosis for future "quality of life" was poor, at best, nonexistent at worst, no matter how much money I spent. Once I had the information I needed, the decision had made itself.
I bred this colt. I brought him into this world, on purpose. I anticipated his arrival for months and months. I cherished him and dreamed about his future. I indulged in dreams about his "potential". And now I was going to take him out of this world, on purpose. I couldn't see any other way that was fair to him. The guilt of having brought him into the world for my own pleasure was heavy - it still is. |
