Dreamoffairhorses
New User
Hi, sorry this will be a bit of a long one but bare with me.
My little sister is at boarding school. I live 30 mile from the family home with my partner. My sister has had the horse for 5 years and therefore obviously loves it dearly, when she won her place at a prestigious school 2 years ago to board it obviously meant that her horse had to find a new home. We managed, quite luckily to find a loan home for the horse.
18months ish later the loaner contacted us to say the horse had kicked her and she wanted to return her. She then changed her mind by the time her livery payments were due to run out and said she would keep her. By this point we had realised actually she did really be need to be sold as 1. We have lost our land 2. Could not afford livery, they have school fees for sister and have recently defaulted on mortgage 3. My mother is not horsey so she would have to find/pay someone to ride her 4. She is a high maintenance type of horse 5. Sister is going to uni after school so realistically was never going to be able to keep horse for herself again.
Two months came and went and the loaner once again changed her mind but assured us she would keep her in exercise till the end of notice period.
Two more months went by and after only one viewing and very high livery bills my mother was starting to worry. As I said she isn't horsey and had been worrying a lot about the horses welfare, if it was getting enough attention ect, the horse wasn't exercised for a month due to contract issues (according to the yard, but turned out they had been told untrue stuff about the horse and were too frightened to ride her)
Getting desperate mother phoned up a good friend who is a professional horse woman, she is very creditable and we trust her implicitly, she went to see her and ascertained that the horse had a back issue, similar to kissing spine but not quite, that was causing her pain and discomfort and had been for a while (backed up by vet opinion later)
This lady has always been fond of the horse and offered to take on all vet care on the chance she came right she would have a very nice horse.
Given the huge amounts of stress my mother has been under (including supporting the family and a huge mortgage while my father is unemployed, working long hours) she acted as to what was entirely best for the horse and signed her over. This of course caused massive agro with sister who was angry and upset mother had acted on her behalf.
The horse then went into residential vet care for 6 weeks intensive massage and physio, therapy ect, all through investigations, steroid injections, everything possible that could be done was. Unfortunately she is only getting worse and deteriorating fast and in a lot of pain moving so the lady and vet have told mum that they think its time for PTS, the lady is devastated too, we were warned there would be a chance of this prior to hand over. Mother and I fully support this decision, the horse is in vets hands 24/7 and deteriorating and in a lot of pain, sort of like she has aged faster than her years. She is only 13 which is heartbreaking as we have known and loved this horse for 5 years but we know that means making the ultimate act of kindness.
At the end of all this, my question is how on earth do we break this to my teenage sister? When she heard it was a possibility of PTS she was thinking of everything possible to do instead (companion ect) and kept saying but she was ridden for 2 years fine, only now, but that was then and this is now and the horse has according to vet had condition masked by calmer supplements keeping her a bit out of it.
She is going to be so totally devastated as understandably she is young, has never lost a horse or person and adores the horse! How on earth do we break it to her? I am also worried about my mother as sister is already blaming her and I know she will blame her for this too.....
No nasty comments please, just some advice please....
How have you coped/done it when having to make this decision for your child's horse/pony? As I don't think its a decision my sister could or would make as she is still young and understandably ruled by her own emotion, but obviously the best, albeit saddest, for the horse.
My little sister is at boarding school. I live 30 mile from the family home with my partner. My sister has had the horse for 5 years and therefore obviously loves it dearly, when she won her place at a prestigious school 2 years ago to board it obviously meant that her horse had to find a new home. We managed, quite luckily to find a loan home for the horse.
18months ish later the loaner contacted us to say the horse had kicked her and she wanted to return her. She then changed her mind by the time her livery payments were due to run out and said she would keep her. By this point we had realised actually she did really be need to be sold as 1. We have lost our land 2. Could not afford livery, they have school fees for sister and have recently defaulted on mortgage 3. My mother is not horsey so she would have to find/pay someone to ride her 4. She is a high maintenance type of horse 5. Sister is going to uni after school so realistically was never going to be able to keep horse for herself again.
Two months came and went and the loaner once again changed her mind but assured us she would keep her in exercise till the end of notice period.
Two more months went by and after only one viewing and very high livery bills my mother was starting to worry. As I said she isn't horsey and had been worrying a lot about the horses welfare, if it was getting enough attention ect, the horse wasn't exercised for a month due to contract issues (according to the yard, but turned out they had been told untrue stuff about the horse and were too frightened to ride her)
Getting desperate mother phoned up a good friend who is a professional horse woman, she is very creditable and we trust her implicitly, she went to see her and ascertained that the horse had a back issue, similar to kissing spine but not quite, that was causing her pain and discomfort and had been for a while (backed up by vet opinion later)
This lady has always been fond of the horse and offered to take on all vet care on the chance she came right she would have a very nice horse.
Given the huge amounts of stress my mother has been under (including supporting the family and a huge mortgage while my father is unemployed, working long hours) she acted as to what was entirely best for the horse and signed her over. This of course caused massive agro with sister who was angry and upset mother had acted on her behalf.
The horse then went into residential vet care for 6 weeks intensive massage and physio, therapy ect, all through investigations, steroid injections, everything possible that could be done was. Unfortunately she is only getting worse and deteriorating fast and in a lot of pain moving so the lady and vet have told mum that they think its time for PTS, the lady is devastated too, we were warned there would be a chance of this prior to hand over. Mother and I fully support this decision, the horse is in vets hands 24/7 and deteriorating and in a lot of pain, sort of like she has aged faster than her years. She is only 13 which is heartbreaking as we have known and loved this horse for 5 years but we know that means making the ultimate act of kindness.
At the end of all this, my question is how on earth do we break this to my teenage sister? When she heard it was a possibility of PTS she was thinking of everything possible to do instead (companion ect) and kept saying but she was ridden for 2 years fine, only now, but that was then and this is now and the horse has according to vet had condition masked by calmer supplements keeping her a bit out of it.
She is going to be so totally devastated as understandably she is young, has never lost a horse or person and adores the horse! How on earth do we break it to her? I am also worried about my mother as sister is already blaming her and I know she will blame her for this too.....
No nasty comments please, just some advice please....
How have you coped/done it when having to make this decision for your child's horse/pony? As I don't think its a decision my sister could or would make as she is still young and understandably ruled by her own emotion, but obviously the best, albeit saddest, for the horse.
