IT’S NEVER EASY saying goodbye to a loved one and my grief over euthanizing my beloved horse Indy last summer remains ever present.
It was a year ago last June when Sound Equine Veterinarian Claire Smith viewed an X-ray she’d taken of Indy’s left hoof to see why he was limping.
It was then she announced Indy was now my “pasture pet,” meaning he was no longer rideable due to advanced arthritis in his joint between his short pastern and coffin bones.
Smith pointed out Indy had ringbone, the term for the bony overgrowth that develops around the pastern bones after an injury.
He also had the same type of degenerative joint disease in his left hock and hip joint.
I’ve got it myself in some of my own joints, so I know it’s painful.
During the same visit I also shared that years ago a farrier had suggested Indy had shivers — a neuromuscular disease — because his hind legs would tremble when the farrier worked on the hoof.
Smith responded by picking up Indy’s left rear hoof. She didn’t get very high before Indy suddenly and deftly used his lifted leg to shove her out of his shelter — hard.
Still upright, she grabbed Indy’s halter, looked him straight in the eye and gave him a terse, “Don’t you ever do that again,” verbal lashing.
To me she said, “That wasn’t shivers, that was all attitude.”
She explained that with shivers Indy wouldn’t have been able to give such a controled response.
In shivers the horse develops a lesion on an area of the brain that controls movement of the back hoofs.
A horse with shivers knows exactly what it needs to do, but the process often confuses and frustrates it. The horse can become fearful.
Basically the lesion causes a malfunction in the timing and function of hind hoof tasks.
Of course I felt horribly guilty Indy had suffered for so long.
Love for him also welled up inside of me because he’d willingly let me ride him many, many times since the accident years ago when he was struck by a car and it was only in the past few years he’d started walking slow and occasionally limping.
And then I surmised Indy must have a hoof abscess even though I couldn’t find it.
It never dawned on me it could be related to the accident because it was so long ago, and at the time Indy showed no signs of injury. Not even a limp.
And, because he showed no signs of being hurt, I didn’t call a veterinarian out to have a thorough examination.
If I had, would it really have changed the course of his joints disintegrating?
No, supplements and modern techniques might have slowed the progression, but the injuries were there and the eventual outcome would have been the same.
I would have spent those years agonizing over his injuries instead of enjoying him.
Obviously if he showed signs of pain, or balked at wanting to be ridden, I would have called the vet out sooner.
In fact, in the years that followed I did call the vet out for some of his issues, such as a painful swollen sheath in the fall of 2013.
I’d even mentioned the farrier’s suggestion that Indy had shivers.
I think the reason why the vet didn’t follow up with a more thorough examination had more to do with my lack of enthusiasm for spending more money on examinations, more tests or X-rays.
I could have put thousands of dollars on my credit card for tests and procedures which might or might not have eased Indy’s pain, but I strongly doubt it would have changed the outcome — an early death due to injuries from an accident.
In the meantime, my big, beautiful blood bay quarter-horse was loved, well-fed and his hooves continued to be trimmed or shod every two months.
I knew it was time to put him down when taking just a few steps seemed to be more than he could bear.
I realized I needed to do right by Indy and end his suffering.
A dignified death
The most common way to euthanize a horse is hiring an equine veterinarian to your place who will inject a sedative, followed by a large dose of barbiturates.
I’ve used that method for three of my horses.
In a short time they started drifting off to sleep.
Then, in slow-motion they collapsed on the ground and into a deep sleep.
Soon, my vet was checking their pulse and, finding none, announcing their death.
I buried all three, two on my own property.
Check with your local county’s administration office for the legal requirements.
However, where my home is located now there’s no discreet area I could dig a deep, enormous hole to lay Indy in.
I knew the sight of Indy’s dead, stiff body lying next to the hole, and then me pushing it in with my little Kubota tractor would likely traumatize some neighbors, especially those with children.
This time I called on the services of the expert marksmen at the Olympic Game Farm.
I’ve heard many times, including from veterinarians, that shooting a horse in an exact spot between their eyes is the fastest and most humane way to put a horse down, because, done properly, the death is instantaneous.
The key word here is “expert.” Miss the spot and the horse will suffer as it bleeds to death.
For whichever method is chosen plan in advance where and how to bury your horse, and then ask the vet to put him down at that location, as I did mine.
My life with Indy
Reader’s of Horseplay might recall some of my more memorable experiences with Indy.
Like when he was a wild and willful 9-month-old I shared the experience of having him gelded.
I included a picture of an anesthetized Indy lying down in my pasture with the veterinarian doing the actual deed of removing Indy’s nuggets.
At the time I was working full time as the PDN’s special sections editor. My boss and PDN publisher John Brewer told me how he and his male counterparts in the newsroom immediately felt squeamish and uncomfortable at the sight.
Or the time I wrote about when my “Indy 500” turned into a wild bucking bronco while I was simply walking him around the arena at a game show.
After I hit the ground and yelled, “I’m OK” my friend, Pam Crosby, shouted back, “You were so close to 8 seconds! You should have ridden it out!”
A chuckle rippled through the crowd because staying on for 8 seconds is what’s needed when riding a bucking bronco in a rodeo for a winning ride.
One of my most memorable and favorite rides with Indy I wrote about in my Aug. 12, 2009, column titled “Trot ride.”
I was accompanying the Backcountry Horsemen’s Peninsula Chapter on a 12-mile ride alongside the Bogachiel River outside Forks.
We were a couple of hours in when a rider behind us yelled out, “Wasps!” just as I was dismounting to tighten Indy’s saddle cinch.
At the sound, Indy immediately lunged forward to trot. The saddle slipped to the side causing me to fall off and Indy to fall on top of me.
I was hurting, but not so much that I wanted to stop the ride. Indy was fine.
Decision time
The decision was very difficult, but when it came to the point Indy felt such great pain he didn’t want to walk at all, and his sheath became painfully swollen, it was clear to me it was time for me to do right by Indy and end his suffering.
I spent his final days brushing him and massaging his aches.
I’d tell him how much I loved him, how special he is and planted kisses on his very soft muzzle.
My good friend Zorina “Zee” Barker drove for 1½ hours from her home in the Sol Duc Valley to Sequim to give moral support.
The gentleman from the Olympic Game Farm arrived to find Indy standing with us next to the horse trailer, happily munching away on apples, carrots and grass pellets.
Quietly he walked up to Indy, greeted him with a rub on his neck and softly spoken words.
We asked how far the game farm will travel to help euthanize horses.
He said not far, staying pretty close to Sequim.
The farm is particular about which horses they agree to put down.
They won’t do so simply because someone doesn’t want their horse anymore; they won’t down a healthy horse.
When I said I was ready, the guy walked back to his truck, retrieved his gun and then calmly stood a few feet in front of Indy’s face.
Indy was still happily munching when I casually turned my back and walked behind the trailer.
Within two seconds I heard the rifle pop and a small thud.
As I turned to look back Zee threw a comforting arm around my shoulders and firmly kept me walking away.
All this time, my other horse Lacey had been standing inside her paddock nervously whinnying and pacing because the horse trailer blocked the view of her son.
Yet, as I rounded the trailer she stopped neighing and stood wide-eyed at the sight of Indy’s lifeless hind end on the ground beyond the front of the trailer.
I threw my arms around her neck, put my cheek to hers and mumbled, “It’s over Lacey, he’s gone.”
It was as if she knew he was gone.
She stood with her head over my shoulder, and in effect, hugging me.
It only took about five minutes for Indy’s body to be hoisted onto the guy’s trailer and hauled away.
Then my good friend Zee grabbed the water to wash blood away in the grass.
It was over.
As for Lacey, she seemed to know what happened and quickly accept Indy was gone.
And, since then, we’ve grown closer.
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Karen Griffiths’ column, Peninsula Horseplay, appears the second and fourth Sunday of each month.
If you have a horse event, clinic or seminar you would like listed, please email Griffiths at kbg@olympus.net at least two weeks in advance. You can also call her at 360-460-6299.
