T'eeH - 2016-01-28 9:30 PM

 i have this sweet older horse in his late teens that I rescued from a kill pen in Ok about 3-4 months ago hoping he could be a light trail horse for the kids. Poor guy has a very large hard calcified knee. He can only flex about 25-30 degrees without wanting to fall on you when I clean out his feet.  Vet said it was just a very old injury and too far gone to do anything to help.

Sweet and quiet on the ground, but he unfortunately has a big motor and super sensitive to leg the few times I have tried to ride with a lot of anxiety that I am sure is mostly due to pain. Not a good candidate for a babysitter.  

I board our horses and I had planned on keeping him at our inlaws ranch but the ground is hard and rocky and I worry about him going down with his limited range of motion in that knee.  He can lay down and get up. Eats good.  Bute seems to have very minimal affect. I think he just has a BIG heart and I am not sure if he is just in a lot of pain all the time?  How do you know what is best for them? If he stills seems happy and moving around do you think he is okay as a pasture pet?

Murphy - 2016-01-29 6:58 AM

I had a vet tell me that as long as an animal is still capable of doing their favorite thing - eating, running, playing, whatever - that their quality of life is still good. I found it a pretty good rule to go by.  

SaraJean - 2016-01-29 10:43 AM Trust your heart, you will know when it's time even if you don't fully want to accept it.

Last fall I put down both of my very special old broodmares before the weather got cold. They where 24 & 25 years old. The 24 yr old was in really bad shape. She was missing a lot of teeth & couldn't chew hay anymore, had a bad shoulder from an old injury that she was very sore on, and she had heaves. She did great when the grass was soft & green, she spent most of the summer fat as a tick & shiny as could be. But once the grass dried up, even with tons of feed 2x a day, the weight just melted off of her.  The other mare had been attacked by a mountain lion over the summer & I almost lost her to that. She lost a ton of weight because of it & as hard as i tried I could not get her to look healthy again. She was a TX girl & hated our ND winters, even when she was in good condition if it was below 40 degrees she was shivering. For both of them the thought of  putting them through another possibly brutal ND winter was worse than the thought of letting them go. The day my vet came to put them down was gorgeous, a warm sunny day with no wind. But that evening when he got here storm clouds where rolling in, after they where gone the wind started howling & there was a crazy gorgeous lightening show. I like to think that was my girls running & crashing through the Heavens! Caring for them was so much a part of my every day routine as they required a lot of pamering. There's days I still tear up doing chores, I miss both of their goofy quirks. But I know without a doubt in my mind that I made the right choice for them.

GLP - 2016-01-29 6:40 AM

I had a mare just like you are describing. Last winter she lost a lot of weight being out in the pasture. I brought her up to the house and got her weight back up. She was bright and happy. The thing was though that this knee couldn't bend very much. She could lift her leg only a few inches. She needed bute to be comfortable. It was muddy and very wet. I was scared she would get down and couldn't get back up, or it would get so she couldn't bend her leg at all. If she got down no one here would be able to put her down and we had no large animal vet within an hour of our house. So one bright sunny day I loaded her up and we drove to the vet so he put her down. She could barely lift her leg enough to step into the stock trailer that sits low to the ground. It was the hardest decision I have ever made and I still tear up thinking about her, but I just could not stand for something bad to happen to her and her suffer. I owed her better than that. It's a hard decision to make and I was crying so hard I almost turned back, but I know I was right. Just do what you think is right. You sound like a caring horse owner.

SaraJean - 2016-01-29 10:43 AM

Trust your heart, you will know when it's time even if you don't fully want to accept it.
Last fall I put down both of my very special old broodmares before the weather got cold. They where 24 & 25 years old. The 24 yr old was in really bad shape. She was missing a lot of teeth & couldn't chew hay anymore, had a bad shoulder from an old injury that she was very sore on, and she had heaves. She did great when the grass was soft & green, she spent most of the summer fat as a tick & shiny as could be. But once the grass dried up, even with tons of feed 2x a day, the weight just melted off of her.  The other mare had been attacked by a mountain lion over the summer & I almost lost her to that. She lost a ton of weight because of it & as hard as i tried I could not get her to look healthy again. She was a TX girl & hated our ND winters, even when she was in good condition if it was below 40 degrees she was shivering. For both of them the thought of  putting them through another possibly brutal ND winter was worse than the thought of letting them go. The day my vet came to put them down was gorgeous, a warm sunny day with no wind. But that evening when he got here storm clouds where rolling in, after they where gone the wind started howling & there was a crazy gorgeous lightening show. I like to think that was my girls running & crashing through the Heavens! Caring for them was so much a part of my every day routine as they required a lot of pamering. There's days I still tear up doing chores, I miss both of their goofy quirks. But I know without a doubt in my mind that I made the right choice for them.

rodeoveteran - 2016-01-29 2:23 PM

I am facing this with my good, old rodeo mare. She is 30 this year. Had a tooth pulled last fall and despite dealing with an infection after for almost a month she is eating well and holding her weight. Arthritis makes it difficult to get up after laying down/rolling. I have had to help her up twice and the other night she was down when I went to do night chores. She had been down and struggling for awhile and when I touched her , she was cold and made no move at all. My heart sank, but while I was unbuckling a halter to put on her head to try and help her, she got up and staggered off, after a little walking she went right to her bucket and ate her entire meal (she often takes all day to clean her bucket in the 22 years I have owned her).

Besides the arthritis, she is losing her sight. As long as I keep others from harassing her, she gets around fine and seems to enjoy the company of my otherwise brat of a "colt"

I owe this mare, who took such good care of both of us throughout the yeas and I don't want to take one day away from her before she is ready, but I don't want her to suffer. She is tough and gritty (other things she had 30 feet of small intestine removed at age 15 and was placing at rodeos within 3 months), so what worries me is how much she endures without complaint. I KNOW that this crabby old mare got up FOR ME the other night and I don't want her enduring an unhappy life FOR ME.

As long as she eats and seems comfortable (with the help of joint shots and daily pain meds), and runs out to buck and kick and stand in the sun, I will keep fighting for her. Lord please let me know when it is time for real.