Sorry, what I meant was that the general population is giving less as they can afford less. Those who donated can afford it - yep! But donations on a whole are down as people tighten their horns.
What might have once take three days, two hundred donors, and a FB post to achieve might now take a week, four hundred donors, and three posts and a live “we need your help”.
Well then the rescues ( IMHO) should be very selective on how they spend their resources.
I agree, unfortunately.
When this funding model stops working the rescues will need to adopt a new financial model. Right now it appears to be a dominant model in the field, or at least visible on IG.
contributions Can be Earmarked requiring those funds to used for a specific task.
This does cause the charity extra paperwork and some charities will refuse earmarked contributions
Those are important words. I had a dog that developed colon cancer. I had no doubt that I should do the surgery to save her life, because good dog owners don’t ever give up, right? She came through the surgery fine, didn’t have a recurrence of that tumor, but was incontinent for the rest of her life. She was only five when I had the surgery done. That was a lot of years with a large dog who couldn’t control her bowels. We had to replace carpet in order to sell the house we lived in at the time, as the stains wouldn’t come out.
Furthermore, she had two different instances of mast cell tumor, many years apart, both successfully surgically removed. She was also epileptic, but we didn’t treat for that as her seizures weren’t frequent–maybe twice a year.
I spent a fortune on this dog at a time when I had a young child; we were OK financially but certainly not great. No one lacked for anything due to the money I spent on this dog, but we certainly could have used to money for other things.
This dog had a reasonably long and very happy life. She started having mobility issues in her teens, and I euthanized her at age 13 when she could no longer get up and down two steps to reach the back yard from the house.
Should I have spent all that money on her? My husband thought it was a mistake. But he let me decide. If it happened again (not likely because we don’t have critters any more), I think I would make a different decision, because I now think “good” dog owners (or horse owners or whatever) don’t hesitate to euthanize when it’s appropriate.
Rebecca
I worked in large animal critical care medicine. What you say about the horses not understanding and it being “torture” is not always that cut and dry. Some horses absolutely have a will to live and are unbelievable fighters, others want to roll over and die from a bug bite. And that’s not anthropomorphizing; pain tolerance and survival instincts vary from individual to individual.
I agree thet some rescues completely lose persective and keep animals alive when euthanasia would have been the kindest option.
But I felt obligated to chime in again because ICU visits and long rehabs do not automatically mean the horse was suffering unnecessarily. Some horses aren’t ready to give up!
Quoting one because this is so very true but two because I think it touches on a thought of mine. What is the end goal of a rescue? To place horses in homes, right? (Not talking sanctuaries who’s goal is to keep horses for life and provide them care) Keeping the goal in mind, would the logical “line in the sand” be that any case where a horse will no longer be sound for even light work, they should no longer pursue treatment?
To counter the pasture sound argument - there are so many privately owned pasture sound only horses who end up in bad situations as they are in marketable (sometimes ending up at aforementioned rescues or sanctuaries). I have yet to see a rescue successfully, routinely place pasture-only sound horses (the added restrictions when adopting from a rescue, IMO, don’t help).
I don’t know if I agree with the above morally/ personally FWIW. But I think if one were to remove emotion (ha) and try to look at it from a more logical/ “this is a business” perspective the above is the answer.
For my personal horses, the limit essentially does not exist. If the vet can give me optimistic odds that horse will have a good quality of life in the pasture, we will go for it.
I wonder how may contributors ask for proof of where the monies they have sent has gone?
I think it also depends on the horse as to what heroics you are going to try and on the owner’s personal situation.
I know someone who did colic surgery on her horse. She lost her husband right before all that and didn’t want to lose her horse too. Her horse survived.
Is the horse the owners favorite or the most rank horse in the stable? Can the owner go out and buy a new horse if they lose this one, or is the horse they own irreplaceable and the loss will be devastating?
As for a rescue, I would be a lot quicker to say “no.” In my mind the horse has not done something worth making such an enormous financial sacrifice. My best horse, yes I probably would want to break the bank to try and save her.
But many rescues take on the financial burden of saving the difficult cases and they do so willingly. Do people support the rescues doing this? I think they do. I was amazed our small town raised $50,000 to save an old theatre. To me, that seemed almost wasteful. Another one was a monument to service dogs that have lost their lives. I can’t remember the price tag, but I remember thinking it seemed like a waste of good money for a statue. You could do so many other things with that money… People can raise and spend money how they choose and it doesn’t have to make sense. It’s their money and as long as people are okay donating…who am I to object?
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