pinky pie - 2015-09-30 7:12 AM

I am so sorry I am going to be in the same boat on Friday we are putting 2 down at one time. They sure do leave hoof prints on your heart!! You will be in my prayers

cowgirl_3207 - 2015-09-29 10:22 PM This has been a long time coming, he winters very hard. Always has, you can't stall him. I had his teeth done, on a strict worming schedule ect. Two months back we went though a SUPER hot spell, he went completely off his feed. Wouldn't eat or even graze much. We put him on extra salts and minerals, still wouldn't eat. He ended up losing a significant amount of weight. He had one eye, due to an accident when he was 2 and was slowly losing sight in his one good eye. He started losing all of his equilibrium when walking or trying stand up. He finally started eating again, but was going down hill still. I felt at that point in time I was doing it for me and not for him. It was a very hard decision.

cowgirl_3207 - 2015-09-30 10:32 AM


We were actually planning on putting him and his sister down at the same time. She is 28 this year, she looks like she is 6 years old until you look at her hind legs. Poor girl has dropped back pasterns, due to poor conformation and age and now she has HUGE bog spavins on both hind hocks. I just couldn't stomach losing two yesterday so we are going to wait and see how she does as the cold is setting in.

pinky pie - 2015-09-30 10:09 AM


It has been a very hard decision to make. Neither of them are going to winter well with both having a lot of age on them. The one very dear to our heart is at least 27+ was my husbands than mine then my daughters . He only has a few teeth and gets very thin in the winter and is getting to the point of getting down to rest or roll and not getting back up very well and scuffing him self all up in the process. He has been such a good boy to all of yes we want to do what is right by him. The other, lived a rough life before we got him and he is also up in his 20's with heaves and arthritis. We are thinking it is going to be a rough winter and he is not " OK " with being alone in the pasture and can not be on a round bale and when he is stalled his heaves really flare up. Treatments have stopped working. With him were danged if we do danged if we don't. I would have liked to wait it out a while but I don't think I could stomach making my daughter go through something like this twice or it have to be an emergency situation. I know its a fact of life, my grandma always says if you gotta em, you gotta loose them. (with people or animals) but she is my baby girl and she loves her ponies dearly so I have to protect her heart also. This will be a first for me and her with putting one down.

cowgirl_3207 - 2015-09-30 12:16 PM


It is even harder when kids are involved. My nieces have grown up with this old boy as their trusty MR. and my daughter is 8 and has a hard time understanding. I have been in a spot before that I never want to be in again. I had an mid 30's appy gelding that was my very first horse. I kept saying...just one more winter....well one day I went out to feed and he was down and I could not get him back up. He tried twice for me and then gave me that look. It was the most heart wrenching thing to see, a horse that had always been so full of life to give up and and be in so much pain. I knew then and there that I would NEVER put another one through that again. I love these guys to the end of world and back.