This morning the mare, Olympia, who had been dumped at Shiloh was three legged lame. She had shown some hind leg lameness last night, but by this morning, she was not bearing any weight on her one hind leg, would not take a step, and was baring her teeth with pain. She acted like some of the other horses we have at Shiloh with fractured pelvis type problems. We think she was heavily buted before being dumped, the last few days she more or less stood in one place and took little short steps with her hind legs.
When we insisted the Brand Inspector come out last Monday, I would not allow him to sign the horse over to us. We wanted to make someone be responsible and try to go after the person who did this. Of course, they wanted to sign her over to Shiloh and then it would all be out of their hands, but we said no. I told him to take pictures and gave him all the info on the man who brought her. That we would hold her until they decided what they would do about the situation.
This morning, after evaluating Olympia, I called the Animal Control and told them the horse was in severe pain and would, at the least, need to go into the vet clinic, and possibly would need to be euthanised. I said, that since she was not our horse, that they are responsible to get this done. They said they would pick the horse up, hold her for three days, maybe adopt her out, and if not then destroy her. I said NO, she needed to go into the vet TODAY to be checked, that her pain was so bad that she could not stand for three days. They decided that they could pick her up today and bring her into Desert Pines. We also called the vet and told them our experience with the horse, they agreed with our decision.
We have her as much medication as we could to try to get her comfortable. We had to do this to make Animal Control be responsible, they will have to pay the vet bill, not Shiloh. Maybe if they have to actually pay a large enough vet bill they might actually do something about her owner.
Shiloh will take the horse in if she is evaluated by the vet, if they feel that she can be rehabbed. If she does have some major medical issue, and is in pain, and the vet feels that she needs to euthanised, then it will be done in the clinic.
This was an emotionally difficult decision for all of us to make, but it was the right one. I will update her story when I hear from the vet.
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4 comments:
I believe that the animal control will send her to an auction rather than pay a hefty bill. I don't know if it was a right decision to send her off with the animal control, those people don't have any good intentions with animals of any kind. I hope Olympia doesn't go to the auction and be slaughtered, she doesn't deserve that. I would have had her euthanized if that is the case. She's in the hands of people who don't care about her with animal control. I know you want to make the owner responsible, but if the owner wasn't responsible enough to take care of this horse, what makes anyone think that he/she will be responsible now? I think at times, you have to just do what's right by the horse no matter how much money you have to pay out. The Lord will judge this former owner when his/her time comes. Our job is to take care of God's creatures when he brings them to us by some miracle. The miracle is receiving the horse while it is still alive.
Shiloh sent her with the one AC officer who seems to care and we called the vet to check on the appointment. If AC does not step up and do their job, many more horses will be dumped to die horrible deaths. Shiloh ALWAYS does the best we can for each horse, we are NOT made of money and have 160 other horses already in the rescue to care for and feed. Olympia went to our vet and we know they will do what is right as well.
I'm not trying to say that Shiloh is doing wrong by sending Olympia off with AC. And you are right, there needs to be something done about AC stepping up to the plate and make owners like Olympia pay the cost. But on the other side of the coin, if owners know that by dumping their ill horses to a rescue ranch will then get them in trouble with the law or they will have to pay a hefty bill, then what's to say that they will just send their horse to slaughter instead and make some money for themselves? There is always a pro and con, I know there are a lot of horse owners out there that are not responsible, but we are trying to keep the horses from going to slaughter. Until slaughter is no longer an option for owners, then I believe we have to rescue as many as we can, even if that means sending a horse such as Olympia to another rescue farm. I do donate to your farm and I believe in what you do strongly, so please don't take my prior comment as if I'm blaming you for anything. There's a reason why Michigan and other states made it a law that any mother can turn her baby in to authorites with no questions ask and no responsibilities, because there were babies being put in dumpsters and being killed because the mother couldn't care for them. So by passing a law that a mother won't be prosecuted for turning her baby in, it brought the death rate down quite a bit. This is the same for people who are allowed to turn their horses in. If they feel that there are going to be consequences for turning in a horse, they may just starve it to death or drop it off in the dessert or send it to slaughter. I'm actively fighting to end slaughter, but until that happens, we have to struggle through these terrible times of owners being irresponsible. It's a shame that it's like this, but do we really want to turn down a horse and leave them in the hands of irresponsible owners? I do support Shiloh.
I had a friend who was considering breeding her mare because it was pretty with nice coloring, though still untrained. I discouraged her by saying, "there are already too many horses..." She thought I meant I didn't like horses or her mare, but if back yard breeders could spend one day at Shiloh...they might feel differently about what they're doing. I love horses, but only have the time and money for one...so I only own one. It's unfortunate that Olympia has had to endure so much pain...I will be donating to the euthanasia fund. If it doesn't help Olympia, it may at least help another horse that cannot be saved.
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