Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

God, you guys are killin me here.  I need a hanky.  *sniff*
Heidi, I totally understand what you had to do and why.  I'm so thrilled
you gave him that one last ride to the mountain.  What a perfect way for
a horse to go.
~C


You're right, Barbara, pulling the trigger is not easy.  But as one who
has had to put down my own both by injection and by bullet, it isn't any
easier to do it by lethal injection--in fact, I think it's more
difficult, simply because it takes longer.  

My Dad wrote a poignant poem about putting down an old horse, in which
he talks about praying that the tears won't spoil his aim.  I wrote a
similar poem when I had to put down my old foundation stallion
Surrabu--back in the days when we could still leave carcasses out on
public lands and when we didn't realize the toxicity of barbiturates to
the native wildlife.  <sigh>  I rode him up his favorite mountain
bareback with the euthanasia drugs in a fanny pack (he had bone cancer
in his jaw, and was wasting away, and had no quality of life left--but
he sure perked up going back out on the trail that one last time), and
one of the saddest times in my life was walking back down that mountain
with his bridle in my hand.  It has been almost 20 years since then, and
I still tear up just thinking about it.

For those of you who are not vets, you have someone else push the
plunger anyway--and I don't blame folks for asking someone else to pull
the trigger.  But I have to agree that a well-placed bullet is
consistently quicker and less traumatic for the horse.


Heidi



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