Survey request - horse owner decisions

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Hello fellow horse owners (or if you've owned a horse in the past 10 years) - I have a BIG request.... do you have a spare 15-30 minutes to answer my survey on horse owner decisions? (I have approval to post this through Admin).

As part of my Master's dissertation, I've developed a survey to understand the decisions horse owners may make for horses who require maintenance treatment to be comfortable when ridden or competed, or for horses who are retired to the paddock, with or without maintenance treatment. You don't need experience of either of the above situations to take part. Your anonymity will be maintained throughout the survey.

The full details are in the post below. The survey link is: [https://allocate.monster/OYNCHVXW](https://allocate.monster/OYNCHVXW...)

You may need to open an external brower to access the survey.

Thank you for reading and as especially big thank you for participating!
 
Hiya. Just completed this for you.

May I congratulate you on formulating what I consider to be an excellent survey. Very easy to fill out, thought-provoking yes, and it was good that you provided an "opt-out" option if people didn't want to fill in certain parts of it.

Hope my responses may be of some use.

I wish you well.
 
Done. I did think that a lot of the answers would depend on the temperament of the horse. It would also depend on the definition of paddock sound. My horse was PTS when she could no longer cope with going out in the field with her mates. She could possibly have gone on a bit longer going out for a few hours each day in a sand pen but I didn't consider that was in the interests of quality of life.
 
Done.... I had a 15 yo gelding who had EMS and PPID. Frequently suffered with laminitis and probably had a back problem. He bucked me off 1 too many times and I decided not to ride him again. It became obvious he could not be retired to a paddock so he was PTS.
 
MiJodsR2BlinkinTite said:
Hiya. Just completed this for you.

May I congratulate you on formulating what I consider to be an excellent survey. Very easy to fill out, thought-provoking yes, and it was good that you provided an "opt-out" option if people didn't want to fill in certain parts of it.

Hope my responses may be of some use.

I wish you well.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for completing it and for your appreciated comments. It's hard to ask everything you want to within a reasonable limit - I appreciate ti's quite lengthy, but hopefully results may halp others in a similar situation.
 
Meredith said:
Done.
I had difficulty sometimes in the 1-10 ranking questions. I would put many of the options together in last place.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much - it is tricky to get the right balance for the format of questions - sometimes you need to kind of 'force' decisions, but I understand what you mean.
 
LeneHorse said:
Done. I did think that a lot of the answers would depend on the temperament of the horse. It would also depend on the definition of paddock sound. My horse was PTS when she could no longer cope with going out in the field with her mates. She could possibly have gone on a bit longer going out for a few hours each day in a sand pen but I didn't consider that was in the interests of quality of life.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much - absolutely the behavioural side is relevant and each owner and horse's situation depends on so many factors, but hopefully there will be some useful information gained from everyone's responses.
Sounds like you made the very hard but right decision with your mare when it came down to quality of life. Thanks again.
 
Carlosmum said:
Done.... I had a 15 yo gelding who had EMS and PPID. Frequently suffered with laminitis and probably had a back problem. He bucked me off 1 too many times and I decided not to ride him again. It became obvious he could not be retired to a paddock so he was PTS.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much. I think so many of us have had to make these decisions and hopefully the analysis will provide results that may help owners making tough decisions (although I appreciate everyone's situation is individual).
 
Nasicus said:
Done. Noticed no option to specify that a paddock-sound horse was a companion from before ownership, or never started work, but otherwise good survey!
Click to expand...
I also noticed this. I bought my Shetland as a companion/project, fully aware she'd never be sound enough for any work. She's never been working before either. But she's a fun little field ornament.
 
Completed - thought provoking.

I would comment that I have been the new owner - for a horse that needed the reduced workload;( following surgery and rehab from kissing spine)
 
I have completed it and thought it was a good survey in that it gave specific scenarios to consider, rather than asking for personal experience (although it did that too). This really helps in establishing how different people would react in a given situation and takes out all the nuance of real life situations, that complicate the answers/decisions. Would be very interested in the results when you have analysed them, if you are able to share.
 
I had a quick look yesterday but will aim to complete today, very pertinent for us as we have a retired coblet, that we are keeping paddock sound on 1 bute/day but who due to his temperament with other horses has to live solo (he can see other horses), he loves human company and interaction but with me working FT and daughter at 6th form and another ridden horse to keep fit there is just not enough hours in the day, and its a constant worry for me. I may have let him go before this winter but daughter just isn't in the right head space to currently so its looking like he will have this summer, but I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity of life.
 
Done.
My paddock sound pony was bought as a companion. Ended up able to be ridden only to end up with issues at 10 and become companion again.

Euthanasia was considered at one point as she struggled to lift a hind foot - she could but if she thought about it too much she couldn't. It took months of reassuring her she could have her foot back for balance if needed. - this occurred after she had a new farrier once (he was patient and gentle with her but she suddenly couldn't give him that foot and the more we tried the more she panicked so we called it a day). I trimmed it the best I could until my farrier could come out.
 
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