After some exhaustive Googling I’m stuck. I’ve made the decision that when I put my mare down I really should donate her body somewhere. The way she is now it may be spring. Anyone have any experience with the process?
She’s got to be an interesting case study. She’s got a coffin bone cyst and just seems to be getting madder and madder. Likely due to just increasing soreness and boredom really. I’m suspecting there’s some really interesting muscle damage in there too. She tore like…i don’t know how many muscles this summer and I’ve never seen that.
You just have to call around. They all have different criteria for what they’ll accept, when, and for what. Pick the vet school closest to you and call the hospital. The initial phone call is awkward but they’ll have an employee who deals with horse donations and can explain options.
I have never transported a body though. Mine were transported alive to the hospital and euthanized there.
I had one that was euthanized at a vet school. At the time, there was a joint study being done and they asked for the donation, which I was glad to do.
Ok. i was kind of figuring but unsure how awkward it would be and how likely. I’m assuming my tactic would be that once I hit the point I’d take her down to the school to do it. I’d like to find a place looking for a specific study related to this. She loved working so I think it’d be a great dignity to her to keep teaching and working in a way. So you guys just contacted someone in the veterinary department or tried specifically for a vet on staff?
She hid this in me for so long I think it caused damage throughout her body, I can no longer keep it contained, if I get her pain down she thinks she’s sound and promptly makes herself unsound again.
Tonight, of course after a week of looking good, she came in looking so lame I thought someone might call the humane society on me if they saw. So now she’s stalled and waiting to figure out a paddock by herself under tight management. See how she tolerates that first. Of course when she’s in a stall her muscles get tight and she gets stiff. So yay. It took a record three hours to get her winter shoes on last week…with drugs.
You could also ask your vet to contact the school to see if there’s interest, and if so whether it would be necessary to send her in to the clinic while alive, or if she could be spared the trip and your vet take appropriate samples or parts.
I have donated 2 to a vet college nearby.
Both had gone there for treatment that in each case, turned out to be endstage.
I found the conversation(s) not at all awkward or off-putting.
Both attending vets & students were very caring & sympathetic. To me & my horses.
In both cases I got cards thanking me for the donation.
Ugh I’m so sorry. It sounds like you are doing the right thing by planning this now. Hopefully she will be comfortable enough to get on the trailer when the time comes.
I have donated two horses, unfortunately. One had DSLD and I knew that NC State was running a study on DSLD in warmbloods so I called the hospital and asked to talk to someone about donating a horse for that specific study. The vet conducting the study called me back (we had actually met before when the horse was there for an MRI so we had a little bit of an established relationship). She helped me schedule the drop-off and I did not interact with any admin staff. The vet and hospital staff were wonderful though. They even sent me a sympathy card signed by 10+ people with personal notes about my horse, who had a pretty big personality (it just about broke me to read it, but was also incredibly touching).
The other horse didn’t have anything as specific so I called the two closest vet hospitals to me and asked the receptionist to speak with someone about donating a horse. It is a bit awkward but they were very professional. In each case they transferred me to the person who manages that. One put me on a wait list for the next time they would need horses for vet students, but it didn’t sound promising and I don’t think I ever got a call back. It was going to be months later IIRC. The other had more options and the donation coordinator called me back within a few weeks. I never talked to a vet there and am not sure exactly what the horse was used for (immediate euthanasia was my condition of donation so I do know he didn’t suffer through a long clinical trial). The coordinator was compassionate and made the process as simple as possible, but I didn’t get any follow-up communications (or a response to my final email, asking what the study was for because I would have liked to know).
I hope that helps. The initial calls were definitely a bit awkward (and heart-wrenching) but once I got talking to the right people, they made things as smooth as possible.
Thank you all. This is making me feel a bit better and assured! I just don’t want to hit a point where suddenly she gets really hurt and crap we have to find a place for her to go.
I did email my vet and reached out to one researcher…so who knows. The vet has known this horse her whole life so she is pretty well versed in her idiosyncrasies. I’m looking at trying small, tiny, turnout and possibly these OCD pellets if my vet thinks they have any shot at reducing symptoms. However, given that a direct injection of steroids to the joint didn’t do anything the second go around and anything below a gram of bute doesn’t even touch it…and she’s ripping her foot out of the farrier’s grip while drugged I’m not super hopeful.The horse, of course, doesn’t enjoy being out of work or being totally alone or being confined. She isn’t crazy but any amount of running is detrimental to the cause.
She’s gone from normal land shark to sharknado.
The crazy thing is, this horse is proof of how tough these animals can be. I had no reason to suspect anything wrong with this horse for most her life. She was tough as nails. No shoes. Rarely needed an adjustment. Fitter than a cross fit champion. Jump anything you point at with a flagged tail. You couldn’t force me to stand when my foot cyst is acting up. Age maybe just caught up with her, that and lack of real work to keep everything strong and balanced. I’d like to blame grad school for that!
I donated a horse two years ago to a local vet school. He was younger (14) and he just wasn’t sound due to an injury. It sucked but it was necessary. I called and found out the donation schedule. The vet school I donated to doesn’t always accept large animals. Luckily when i was ready to let him go the school was accepting large animals. The phone calls and donation was easy, compassionate and quite sweet. They allowed me all the time I needed to say goodbye. From what I heard from friends who worked there he was kept for a few days because he was a classic stifle injury. He was scheduled for immediate euthanasia to be a cadaver animal for a class on colic surgery and later anatomy labs but the school did reserve the right to use him as a live example of his injury. I can understand why they did it he was easy to handle and generally a sweetheart. I know he got alfalfa, peppermint treats and a deeply bedded stall while he was there.
I later donated a cat to the same school and had just as easy of time. The person in charge of the program even got my cat’s body from the vet (outside the normal pickup zone) for me. If you are able, donating your pet’s body to teach future vets and/or be involved in research studies is one of the most compassionate things you can do. I plan do it with as many of my animals as I can going forward.
As a vet tech student who just had the opportunity to do a necropsy on a donated horse… thank you for your consideration to donate to a program! Ours doesn’t normally have the opportunity to work with equine dissection. As a future tech who wants to get into sport horse rehabilitation, it was the most beneficial lab to be able to see everything in person and get a clearer understanding of how all the systems function together. I love that you want to allow your horse to continue teaching once she is gone- and I am sure so will the students who get to work with her.
Thank you. Actually I nearly became a vet tech…I just should have. I took field mammalogy in school and am a part time hog farmer and I’ve always considered a real life example the most incredible opportunity for learning. I home butcher my hogs actually, it’s just fascinating what you can learn from seeing the animal from the inside. Gives you a perspective you can’t get elsewhere, I literally look at every liver, spleen, heart, lung and intestines of every hog on my farm.,.,well not my “pets”. The breeding animals get a luxury life and Viking funeral!
. I just lost my elderly mare as well and wondered what would the other mare want? I know anthropomorphizing at its best but where one mare was a homebody who just wanted her routine the other is a show off and real war horse. I kind of feel like if there are horsey ghosts she’d be happier continuing to teach and be an example and would haunt me if I just put her in a grave.
as Monty python would say,she’s not dead yet. Today she looked normal. This is getting weird for me. Literally one minute she’s dead lame, the next sound enough. She nearly took the kid’s arm off when she went to do her hay this am so that’s not great. Sharknado.
Great point. I hadn’t thought about my small animals. Most die of old age so I never thought much of it. I had a cat die of cancer a few years ago though.
Thats a great point for my dog though. She’s been a mystery case for low heart rate and a weird congestion and cough, but aside from some seasonal allergies that are kept in check by a bath she’s a totally healthy and athletic farm dog. We are pulling blood next but we’ve run through nearly every thing we can think of. Next up is scoping her throat to look for scarring or a deformity.
I hope your dog is ok. Sending good thoughts your way.
My cat had throat cancer. Rare in cats but almost always life ending. I asked when donating what they planned on using him for. When I found out it was for dental cleaning practice, I told the woman that they may have trouble with that because of the growth in his throat/mouth. She was escatic (as much as one can be with an owner of a now dead cat) because they don’t get cancer kitties very often and his body would be used to study the affects of cancer in cats. I think when they picked up his body they took his mental record with them.
I donated one years (decades) ago, but it was done through my vet. The horse had septic arthritis in her hock, and the vet had been working with the local university on new treatments. When we had to let her go the University asked to have her body for necropsy (sp?). She was led onto a horse trailer, euthanized there, and then transported to the University. But it was my vet who was in contact with the University.
Doing bloodwork today to see if any weird thyroid stuff but she’s quite literally a regular tough farm dog! I mean, I haven’t summited mountains lately but this dog is a regular 4k footer. Her heart rate is usually low but she’s usually fitter than most distance runners and right now she’s a bit out of shape for her so that made me a bit nervous.
That’s so fascinating , and odd. I’ve never heard of a cat with throat cancer either!
I’m still waiting for a hit. First lab said no one was currently looking but I’m also not rushing. She’s a tough horse really and now that there is snow she thinks nothing is wrong. Getting a blanket on in the wet weather ( barn kids, what can you do? This horse hasn’t shivered a day in her life), and somewhat behaving. My farrier discussed checking for cushings but aside from behavioral changes there’s not a thing that’d point me that way. We will go back to dorm gel next shoeing and see. I haven’t touched her lately so I’m going to poke her back and see if she tries to take my head off.
We donated a horse to a local vet hospital. She had many brilliant vet’s stumped and ended up having a very rare heart tumor. I think the vet’s wrote a paper on it.
I am going to try to donate my pony as well once the Equioxx stops working. She has a crooked leg and a ringbone type reaction. She’s only 5.
