Well put. If giving up is our benchmark for suffering we’ve failed as their guardians. I am protecting my peace by not watching the most recent video. I’ve found the last handful appalling and struggle to understand how any horse person can defend this.
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I hate the “as long as he wants to fight” justifications. It is a horse and has no ability to understand its situation.
There is a kind of similar situation at my boarding barn. Older horse, started with a chronic condition in one hind leg about a year ago. Vet was involved. Then there was a swelling on the opposite leg and owner decided it was harmless and kept horse in light work. Horse went lame in that leg and now both hinds were sore and horse was lying down a lot. Owner decided not to give the horse painkillers “so vet can see how he is” but visit isnt scheduled until 10 days later. Well, it has been antibiotics and injections ever since and the horse has not been near sound. He is currently extremely lame, thin, and bruised (from his efforts to lie down and get up). The vet seems willing to endlessly treat the poor old horse. Owner knows I would have relieved the horse of his pain quite some time ago. But the vet is involved so there is nothing more I can do.
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Secretly hoping the Mods shut this thread down. It’s time. If you want to watch this horrible horror show of sadness, go to tik tok or wherever, just not here.
A person (general) can ignore it here just as well as they ignore it out there.
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I saw a disturbing update on another website last night. I can’t find it posted anywhere by Katie, so hopefully it is someone stirring the pot, but it claimed that they performed surgery to fuse one of Seven’s fetlocks. At what point do they pull the plug on this?!
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I saw the same, that he had an infection in the cartilage of his fetlock so they performed a procedure to scrape that out and fuse it (or something to that extent). I do think at this point it’s gone too far.
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I haven’t been following this story except to quickly browse here. I think it’s become ghoulish. Whatever the motivation behind the woman who owns this forlorn colt, I think the vets might also be enabling and supporting her because they’ve been presented with opportunities to try treatment protocols and gadgets. What a rare chance for them, all at the expense of this pathetic little creature. It seems like experimentation at this point. And torture.
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Years ago when I worked in vet clinical a client would bring in her dog who had cancer. The dog was under the care of a vet oncologist at another clinic. We drew blood to give data that would make for it to have its next chemo dose. The dog body condition absolutely melted away over 2 months to what most here would score body condition 2.
I eventually told the vet I absolutely refused to help him draw the blood and to get someone else.
We were only providing the blood work, the treatment was done at another clinic. I cannot imagine what those techs went through.
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I suppose the university is learning more about orthotics and early bone development. There. I said something nice.
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And making good money doing it.
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I watched the video. If sounds like euthanasia was considered, but the vets were encouraging that he could still have a good outcome. Vets and human doctors are trained to fix things. They see death as a failure and no one wants to fail. So they will keep trying to fix things until the bitter end. Its hard to know when to stop when you are on the middle of it. Kind of reminds me of Barbaro…
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This is disgusting.
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In the first couple months, I was optimistic, but the longer this goes on and he can still barely move at 6 months old? I have to say I think I would have made the decision by now, even if money wasn’t an issue. His expression does not look happy in that recent video, and the fact that his updates are less and less frequent tells me that he spends most of his time not looking too great.
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How anyone can actually say with a straight face that they care about his comfort is beyond me.
Bone grafts are excruciating. 
That poor soul.
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Like others, I was guarded at the beginning, but cautiously hopeful since his owners have the resources to throw at a possibly successful rehab. Unfortunately it’s come out to the other end we see sometimes, where money is no object so the owners and vets seem not to be seeing the forest for the trees. Let’s try just one more thing, well we can afford to do this so let’s try it…it’s in his best interest so it’s okay, he hasn’t given up yet (nevermind that he’s never known anything but pain, and “still fighting” just means he just hasn’t become completely nonresponsive yet)…
Sometimes folks don’t realize you can still torture an animal with the best of intentions. Poor creature.
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I was talking to someone yesterday about! caring for a broken horse. My second horse’s gift to me at his end was this: Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. 
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Can you share a Cliff Notes update? I don’t have TikTok and it won’t let me play it.
One daughter made me aware of this gal & the foal about 6 weeks ago, made me shake my head. Would she have taken it this far without social media?
I don’t have tik tok either (as far as I know) and I can play it. So… I’m not sure why it’s not playing?
Cliff Notes version: The poor thing had his fetlock fused in hopes he’ll be “pasture sound” but of course, that’s not typically done on a 6-month old colt. He got an infection but that seems to be under control with IV antibiotics and hyperbaric oxygen treatments. He gets electrical stimulation of his muscles to combat atrophy and his blood work, according to the vet, continues to show some systematic issues that they’re addressing.
I couldn’t help but notice that the little colt’s back is humped up, like a horse doing all it physically can to alleviate the weight on its limbs. That cannot be a comfortable stance.
But the owner, at the end, asks us to continue to pray for Seven. Honestly, my prayers would be for this little creature to finally be at peace. In my opinion, I think he’s being tortured for her ego-- whether she realizes it or not-- and veterinary curiosity.
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