ClaretCarrot
Active Member
I need to apologise in advance for the very long rambling post. I had my horse pts this week and I'm really really struggling to come to terms with it. I had her nearly 20 years and she was unsound for most of it. Between serious injuries and reoccurring laminitis, her life was a very strict diet for most of the year with bouts of pain management when necessary. Over the years in my head I knew the sensible decision would be to pts but I never thought I would have the guts to go through with it. I justified keeping her going because she loved the winters and the freedom of being in the field with the whole herd.
This winter she got laminitis, and the prospect of putting her in a wood chip starvation paddock in winter changed everything. I just couldn't starve and segregate her during the winter too. So when the farrier told me to put her in the woodchip paddock for a few weeks to get over the laminitis, instead I put her out in the field with her friends and I called the vet to get her pts. I pretty much asked the vet to come up ASAP as I was worried I'd chicken out like I have many times in the past.
It all went very smoothly and she didn't for a moment have any worry. I managed to hold it together at the time, but now I'm absolutely falling apart. It's like it was a different person who called the vet and made that decision, and led her out of her stable to be pts. I was in some sort of haze at the time, and now that haze has lifted I can't actually believe I did it.
This post is completely pointless, I'm just wondering will this extreme sense of guilt and disbelief go? I'm absolutely devastated.
During the spring summer autumn she was on a track looking longingly at the horses in the rest of the field. When laminitis hit she'd be moved to a woodchip paddock. The rational part of me knows I did a lot of her, as I built the track and the woodchip paddock for her and spent a fortune on vets and farriers over the years. But I can't shake off this extreme feeling of guilt. I'll miss her terribly. And of course now I'm thinking of a couple of things I didn't try, and maybe they might have been the key to keeping her sound.
This winter she got laminitis, and the prospect of putting her in a wood chip starvation paddock in winter changed everything. I just couldn't starve and segregate her during the winter too. So when the farrier told me to put her in the woodchip paddock for a few weeks to get over the laminitis, instead I put her out in the field with her friends and I called the vet to get her pts. I pretty much asked the vet to come up ASAP as I was worried I'd chicken out like I have many times in the past.
It all went very smoothly and she didn't for a moment have any worry. I managed to hold it together at the time, but now I'm absolutely falling apart. It's like it was a different person who called the vet and made that decision, and led her out of her stable to be pts. I was in some sort of haze at the time, and now that haze has lifted I can't actually believe I did it.
This post is completely pointless, I'm just wondering will this extreme sense of guilt and disbelief go? I'm absolutely devastated.
During the spring summer autumn she was on a track looking longingly at the horses in the rest of the field. When laminitis hit she'd be moved to a woodchip paddock. The rational part of me knows I did a lot of her, as I built the track and the woodchip paddock for her and spent a fortune on vets and farriers over the years. But I can't shake off this extreme feeling of guilt. I'll miss her terribly. And of course now I'm thinking of a couple of things I didn't try, and maybe they might have been the key to keeping her sound.