Very premature foal

[GraceLikeRain]

She capitalized off of an ignorant fan base. She fed into a false narrative for months that he would defy odds and only started quietly backtracking towards the end. I am completely unsurprised by the backlash because it isn’t coming from the horse community. The backlash is coming from the community she personally groomed - horse loving youth, people who personify animals, etc. She spoke to them and called them to be on her team of defying the odds. Of course most of them don’t understand colic or how medically fragile he was and the vitriol once aimed at the few brave enough to voice concerns are now being turned on her.

I have very little empathy for a person able to look at an animal in daily pain and choose “life” over a fear of grief or what others would think.

[enjoytheride]

I have had to have heated discussions with vets about putting my pets down, even at a euthanasia appointment. Vets are people too, and have a wealth of knowledge and with a nearly unlimited budget there are many options and I have felt like a POS turning down options that were in my budget because I believed euthanasia was the right choice. I could see a vet going “well he has limited mobility but we are managing any pain with xyz and as long as he’s abc he’s good.”

[Amberley]

She also appealed directly to the kooky evangelical woman crowd who sits home all day posting “prayers!!” on facebook with the miracle baby talk. Those people genuinely think that they can will things to happen by appealing to their god using ritual requests or posting prayer hands or whatever they do, and they are not happy when someone steps in and does a human thing.

[Mosey_2003]

@Amberley

posting prayer hands

Their stubborn refusal to see them as high-fiving hands amuses me.

[bingbingbing]

I am relieved 7’s suffering is over.

I know it was meant as a high five, but when you type in pray in the emoji search those hands come up.

[Alterration]

@steelerino

Having worked for vets in the past, IMO they are partially to blame for this. They are willing to do whatever a client is willing to pay for.

I recently put my horse down for DSLD. The vets had told me that “the time” would be when he was down and unable to rise.

IMO, that would have been too late.

I put him down before that. When he was still able to trot and canter around in the pasture which was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I did it because I didn’t want to find him with that tendon slipped in extreme pain or down and unable to rise.

To put an animal down isn’t an easy thing. Even when there is very little to be done or the prognosis is limited, sometimes a vet will give you static. I had a dog with a terminal mammary tumor that they wanted me to do chemo & put through surgery. She was a 12 year old Doberman which would mean that very likely her final years would have been hell (or more likely final 6 months given her age). I said no, and we put her down, but the vet couldn’t understand and thought we were being “cheap”.

On the contrary, I was being kind. Even though it ripped my d*mn heart out to do. In a way, once Katie decided to publicize the birth of the horse she was kind of screwed. Neither the public nor the vet’s office would make it easy no matter the decision she made.

[MsM]

I will give her props that she funded a veterinary scholarship and directed donations from her (sometimes unhinged) followers to that fund.