Prosthetic limbs on horses.

T

The wife

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What does everybody think of them? After stumbling across a Facebook page where most were praising the work of the vets for giving him a 'second chance', I did some research and fund a few videos of horses with prosthetic limbs... All looked very unhappy, uncomfortable and lame (which I appreciate they will due to height difference between real limb and the false one). I'm a little appalled if I'm honest that horse are merely experiments for vets to say 'look what we can do.
 
I saw one in the USA where they seem a little more common and to be blunt it made me feel sick. The poor thing looked exhausted just walking the length of a barn. Just wrong
 
twobearsarthur said:
I saw one in the USA where they seem a little more common and to be blunt it made me feel sick. The poor thing looked exhausted just walking the length of a barn. Just wrong
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Was that a coloured pony? I've watched that video while researching this a little before I posted. If its the same one I felt somewhat uncomfortable watching her hobble about
 
Maybe, just maybe, with a small miniature where you haven't got the issues around the sheer bulk and power of a larger horse. Not something I'd do though. I've seen the facebook pic of this particular horse (assuming it's not photoshopped) and to be honest it made me feel sick. The horse is covered in sores and looks sad and lame. They're flight animals FFS - they need to be able to run, and that's never going to be an option then questions have to be asked. Some of the 'any life is better than no life' comments on that pic are just scary.
 
I think that it is much worse for a horse to be three legged than e.g. a cat, with or without a prosthetic limb. Horses are bigger and heavier, and in comparison less agile, which must make it much more difficult for them to live without one of their real legs.

I also think that it matters in this question that horses are prey animals, even though I think that it is okay if we temporarily make them unable to use flight behaviour to avoid potential danger, while they're recovering from some type of injury or illness, I think that it is wrong to do something to them that you know will lead to a permanent difficulty for them to perform such basic behaviour, if they feel they need it.
 
I had no idea such ridiculous things existed even. What a shockingly stupid invention. I'm not going to look it up because I don't think it's something I want to see.
 
Small animals can cope quite well with amputations, particularly cats. For horses I would never consider it. Prosthesis can cause pressure sores etc for people, imagine the pressure when you're dealing with 500kg plus weight?! And humans would be able to take off the limb for a few hrs when they are asleep etc. A horse would have to have it on all the time. Imagine the panic a horse would be in if the prosthesis fell off! It's cruelty in my opinion. I won't google it for fear of what I see
 
I'll bet this is the one that did the rounds a few years ago. They replaced a front limb... Think of the load on that digging into his/her poor wee shoulder, I think he/she ended up being PTS with lami in the other front leg as a result of the extra loading.

Disgusting in my opinion, I'd never do it and I'd certainly poke my nose in and cause as much hell as possible to anyone I knew was doing such a thing to their horse.
 
It seems that smaller animals seem to adapt more to change in their bodies with such things as amputations. I believe it's possibly to do with how they survive in the 'wild'.
Generally, cats and dogs do not have other predators after them. A horse, Zebra etc with an injury is often left by their herd as they cannot keep up and will attract predators who will go for the weak, young and old. Horses waking up from anaesthesia will often strike out and panic in confusion, needing to get to their feet. An injured or 'numb' leg frightens horses as they cannot control it = resulting in possible predation.

I believe no vet is going to be able to 100% determine exactly how much pain or discomfort a horse is in with a prosthetic, as they naturally hide pain for the above reason. People need months and years of adjustments for prosthetics and I don't think this is offered to these horses.
Yes, breaks are not /always/ a death sentence depending on the type of fracture, however putting an equine in this position (especially with front legs which carry more weight than the hind) is just cruel. Yes, the horse may prick its ears, eat grass and neigh more than it would if it had been PTS, but it does not mean it is happy or that it justifies the procedure. I struggle to get my head around how these horses coped before they got "used to" their new limb. I imagine them panicking, stumbling and falling around a lot.

Just because you can, does not mean you should.
 
I actually think a lot of it centres around ego in vets, I remember my vet when talking to me about my dog said he wouldn't operate on her second lump on the other half of the thyroid, the first half has already been removed. He said that he wanted to operate because her condition is so unique butin doing so would be putting ego (something he tells me vets constantly battle with) order welfare, something he couldn't do.

I think it's the ego/pioneer mentality, sometimes they become blinded to welfare issues all for the sake of making a name and a mark in history as it were.

I can't ever envisage myself as a vet ( if I were one) ever considering such an act or ever being able to convince myself that it was in the best interest of the horse.

It's just sick and cruel.

Oh and vintage... Just because you can, doesn't mean you should... One of my favourite quotes and entirely apt to this topic :)
 
I like that very much, succinct and too the point " Just because you can, does not mean you should!"
 
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