Having a horse PTS due to behaviour - ever done it?

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Festive_Felicitations

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Has anyone ever had to make the hard desicion to put a horse down becasue their behaviour is too unpredictable and agressive to make keeping them safe and selling them would be highly irresponsible?
At what point did you decide enough was enough? That percervereing was unlikely to get any where and it wasn't worth the risk?


Long story short - in 2011 we bought an unhandled rising 4yr old Anglo Arab gelding. He was a major handful when we first got him very agressive on the ground and hard to handle. He is now broken in and has improved and we have made many management changes which have helped. But he is still very unpredictable - butter wouldn't melt one minute then seriously trying to take a chunk out of you the next - and we don't trust him at all ridden or on the ground.
It has gotten to the point where we are seriously considering having him PTS. I was just wondering if anyone else has made the decision and what was your trigger point?
 
I would think realistically about his future, is he to keep, compete, sell on and what type of owner he is suitable for? I have had four PTS in the last four years, once you make the decision its not that bad.
 
I have had 2 PTS due to behavior and come close with anouther (but found a physical pain problem and sorted him).

First had been in a stable fire, he was totaly physically healed afterwards but had come to associate people with pain, dressing changes, skin grafts etc. He would come at you in the field and you had to go into his stable in pairs to safely get a head collar on him. His saving grace was that once he was tacked up he was an angel and suitable for novices. Unfortunatly turning him away didnt help his agression on the floor, nor did regular firm but fair handling. It came to a head when he came over his stable door at one of the grooms, picked her up by her ear and shook her untill her ear ripped off!
He went to the hunt the next day.

The other I bought at beeston market and it was lovely, untill the drugs wore off. Then it turned into a complete psyco! Hooves and teeth flying utter nightmare!
Tried everything with it but it broke many many bones of many different people and we never even managed to get it to reliably lead in a head collar let alone anything else! It was shot by the hunt as well, it was just too unpredictable and dangerous to warent going any further with.

The one that was saved from the bullet was a lovely little horse to handle, do anything on the ground with him and small children could handle him, with a saddle on was a totaly different kettle of fish where he was an unpredictable blind bolter who would go through fences and into walls. We tried everything with him, he flew through so many lameness exams and Xrays and nothing appeared to be wrong with him.The only thing stopping me making the call was that he was such an love on the ground and the ridden problems were not "him" if you get me?
Anyway as a last ditch effort to find something he went for a bone scan, they found a fractured pelvis. Time, healing and a lot of working through remembered pain and he came right bless him.
 
years ago ff I bought a horse via this forum, she was a total cow. no that's kind, she was an evil witch, she hated people, and horses, and she would literally come over the door to get you, a friend came to the yard and asked how I got in a stable with her!!... she went out on loan and came back with a tendon injury, my vet had been out to scan her leg, and was leant on her arse, the ym walked passed and said oh you had to sedate her then... nope was the answer..

the mare was a fruit cake to ride, she reared napped buck span, there was one incident where I couldn't get her through a ford, I knew she wasn't scared of water, so gave her a smack, she reared, lept buck and span, and for good measure as she landed she dived for the horse behind me. at which point I got off.. she bloody was going through the ford.. yeah great but I couldn't get back on she kept rearing, so person with other horse couldn't get near me, as she was going for the other horse, I had to ring the x husband to come and hold her!

there was nothing wrong with this mare, she was on regumate when I got her and it turned out it made her worse, and I found out she hadn't been treated so well in Ireland,

I got on with her, and her traits didn't scare me, somebody said this was the key, and that I liked her.. I loved her to bits...I sold her in the end as I only ever bought her as a project, and the only thing that mare liked was to jump.

sometimes it takes a change of handler, some times a full body examination, and yes sometimes a bullet. said mare I bought for 1500, spent 8k on vets bills.. I always said with the tendon if she could jump again, id keep paying and she could. .. I sold her for the same price .. there pics of her on fb under my mad mare, the one of her leaping about is her first turnout after the tendon and she was HEAVILY sedated, if you wanted to read her full story and some of the things I went through tried/failed/ nearnly died over her story is on the net..
 
years ago ff I bought a horse via this forum, she was a total cow. no that's kind, she was an evil witch, she hated people, and horses, and she would literally come over the door to get you, a friend came to the yard and asked how I got in a stable with her!!... she went out on loan and came back with a tendon injury, my vet had been out to scan her leg, and was leant on her arse, the ym walked passed and said oh you had to sedate her then... nope was the answer..

the mare was a fruit cake to ride, she reared napped buck span, there was one incident where I couldn't get her through a ford, I knew she wasn't scared of water, so gave her a smack, she reared, lept buck and span, and for good measure as she landed she dived for the horse behind me. at which point I got off.. she bloody was going through the ford.. yeah great but I couldn't get back on she kept rearing, so person with other horse couldn't get near me, as she was going for the other horse, I had to ring the x husband to come and hold her!

there was nothing wrong with this mare, she was on regumate when I got her and it turned out it made her worse, and I found out she hadn't been treated so well in Ireland,

I got on with her, and her traits didn't scare me, somebody said this was the key, and that I liked her.. I loved her to bits...I sold her in the end as I only ever bought her as a project, and the only thing that mare liked was to jump.

sometimes it takes a change of handler, some times a full body examination, and yes sometimes a bullet. said mare I bought for 1500, spent 8k on vets bills.. I always said with the tendon if she could jump again, id keep paying and she could. .. I sold her for the same price .. there pics of her on fb under my mad mare, the one of her leaping about is her first turnout after the tendon and she was HEAVILY sedated, if you wanted to read her full story and some of the things I went through tried/failed/ nearnly died over her story is on the net..
 
I just have.

Slightly different circumstances in that we kept the pony as a pet for a few years, my mum cared for her but sadly she was diagnosed with terminal cancer a few weeks ago and her field companion had to be PTS as her navicular was getting too severe so due to the fact that I can't afford or cope with more than 2 horses on my own we had to let her go too.

We had her 7 years and she had a very severe rearing/napping problem. This was eventually (after much searching!) pin pointed to an old back/neck injury. We had it treated and the pony reschooled, and she went from not being able to be sat on to hacking out okay. However she remained extremely unpredictable and had no hesitation about going bolt upright 3 or 4 times in a row without any warning what so ever.

I retired her when I decided to take her for a ride one day and I barely got my bum in the saddle when she went up and she just kept touching down and going up again, spinning around, until I jumped off. She also needed quite careful management - she was extremely over-reactive to many situations; bolshy, only ever settled with 1 other horse (the navicular mare), had to come in overnight or she'd jump out the field at night (even 5 foot post and rail fencing plus electric tape, tonnes of grass, ect, nothing kept her in), difficult with the vet/worming/generally most things. We put up with it and over the years we'd figured out a way of keeping her as a companion and keeping her happy, but it meant rehoming her was impossible. I didn't want her to be passed on from pillar to post or someone to get on her and be killed. To be honest I also don't know if she'd ever of settled with another field companion, she was literally terrified of most other horses (she was hand reared so lacked a lot of social skills).

Its still very raw. As much of a pain she was, I loved her dearly and she had an enormous character. But I couldn't set myself up for 10-20 years of struggling financially and timewise for a pony I wasn't really getting anything out of.
 
Me too, but it was a six month old foal. I have handled a few foals and while shy to start, they learn and even the cautious ones are a sucker for a scratch especially on the bits they can't reach.

But not this one. From day one he was shy and skittery and every day you worked with him you started from page one. He just seemed to have no memory and an over developed flight reaction. He would get in such a state he would be ricocheting off the yard rails, his mother and anything else that got in his way.

After a weeks work I would normally have a halter on, lead, pick up feet and brush all over, and I like to do this in the first two weeks. Six months along and I could still barely get a hand on this one, so PTS was the only option.
 
I have had a couple of ponies that for various reasons couldn't be sold on, not without endangering other people. It is horrible, even so.

And you would be surprised how many go down the road from professional yards, the ones that wouldn't want their name associated with a difficult animal if it got sold on. It is the dealers who try to sell them on for any money.

Generally people give the horse a chance and will try to get to the route of the problem, after all a horse is potentially a valuable animal, but there comes a point where the time runs out. IMO it is more responsible for the current owner to PTS rather than foist it off on someone else, or send it to market where the outcome will be the same but maybe after more misery for the horse and damage to another person.
 
I know of one, about a year ago. Big beautiful intelligent horse bred by novices who treated him like a puppy, played chase games etc with him, then when he got too difficult, sent him to a show jumper as a selling livery. He was fine so long as he was totally under the thumb but the instant he got any form of control back he didn't respect humans at all - I suspect he learned a lot from the bullying which had kept him in check for a while.
I found him a loan home for the owners with someone who was experienced and owned her own stallion. Fine while he was assessing the situation but eventually back to the total disrespect - he would walk through you as soon as round you, even when you were being big and noisy, and had no interest whatsoever in relating to people.
Real shame, he was a beautiful horse and well bred, but it was all due to how he was treated as a foal. I think hand reared foals can end up like that too.
 
Yes, I have.
I battled on for nearly 6 years with behaviour getting worse not better.
Had a couple of different professionals try him, he wasn't fussy if it was a 'name' on his back, anybody was fair game.

He had always been okay(ish) on the ground, when this deteriorated, I made the very sad decision to have him pts.
6 years on, I still think 'what if' but realistically, every avenue had been explored and there was no other way and thankfully the vet was in full agreement, so no convincing was necessary.
Still makes me :( though.
 
I very nearly did. She had been getting progressively more difficult over the years. First I stopped riding her on the road, then I stopped riding her, then it needed 2 of us to lead her safely etc, etc, She always got worse in winter and then didn't go back to previous behaviour in summer but got worse again next winter. She was ok for one person to put out in the morning but a nightmare to bring in.
Looking back, I wonder why it took us so long to put it altogether - probably because the deterioration was over a number of years.
At the very last minute, we happened to stop feeding her molassed coarse mix (this is yrs ago, feeding such stuff was the norm) and over the course of a week, her behaviour changed beyond all recognition, back to her previous affectionate. We kept her for another 12 yrs until she died of a stroke but we didn't bring her back into work, because we could never be sure that passersby hadn't fed her stuff she couldn't cope with. She had exactly the right temperament to be a companion to any one of our other 3 horses.

We could never have passed her on because I wouldn't have trusted any-one else to keep her feed plain enough.
 
There aren't many horses you get to this point with but they do exist. There are a number of prescribed routes which you can take to try to find out the issues and very often, a seemingly horrendous horse can be helped and sorted out.

However, there really does come a point when, unless you have endless pockets, you have to call time. For those of you who still think "what if?".. Don't. You are being overly harsh on yourself. Even today, with all the advances in medicine and behaviour, there are still a lot of horses who can't be diagnosed or sorted out.

A story has always stayed with me. Years ago, I knew a professional rider who would reschool tricky horses. She had one that she surmised was too dangerous and would hurt someone and should be PTS. Owner ignored the advice sold said horse and the new owner died when the horse went over on the road.
 
I nearly did a couple of years ago when big horse kicked me in face, I found the key was herd dynamics....my other horse although a teddy bear with humans was very much head of the herd over big horse and would keep him in line.

As long as they graze together and big horse gets his daily telling off from his brother everybody's happy
 
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