She didn’t deserve to die
Coming To Terms With Behavioral Euthanasia
by Sue Alexander CPDT-KSA, CBCC-KA, CDBC
When I was a little girl, the one thing I wanted was to ride horses. I wanted a pony in just about the worst way. And when I was 44, I finally fulfilled that wish, with a young, beautiful mare who was thoroughly outside of my skillset to deal with. Kayak was 15 hands, 4 years old and barely broken. I thought I would have the skills to deal with a horse like her; hadn’t I been riding every chance I could get since childhood? Hadn’t I taken courses in university to learn more about what horses need? Hadn’t I worked in barns off and on through my teens and twenties? Hadn’t I part-boarded horses whenever I possibly could? In spite of all that, I can recognize now that I was horribly overmatched with Kayak - I just did not know what I did not know!
Riding Kayak the First Winter I Had Her
The first thing that went wrong for Kayak was coming from a place where she was the lowest ranking mare in a herd of 7 mares. When she arrived at my house, she was pretty beat up; she had open sores from the other horses biting her. She was extremely savvy about electric fences too; she would escape whenever possible and take herself for a jolly good run. As a dog trainer, my answer to this was simply” “Of course a horse who was under exercised would want to run around!” Little did I realize that being the low mare on the hierarchy for most of her life taught her skills that few horses ever get to learn. For the first two hears I had her, I could watch her walking the perimeter of the fence, barely touching it with her whiskers; she knew exactly where the weak spots were. Although she only actually left the property once, we learned fairly quickly that you had to make sure that the fence was working and connected everywhere.
Kayak was friendly and curious, and “in your pocket”. She wanted to follow you everywhere and didn’t really care if you were in the mood for attention and affection; she was, and that was all there was to it. If she wanted to do something or have something, she could be quite pushy. As a clicker trainer of dogs, I was eager to exploit that intelligence and drive, and indeed Kayak very quickly became adept at shaping. She came home in November, and by January she had dozens of cool behaviours under stimulus control; in other words she would do them when asked, and not do them when not asked. I thought I was doing a fabulous job with her.
Kayak’s natural curiosity and affinity for people resulted in some shenanigans I might not encourage today! Here she is trying to get into the house.
Kayak had been started in a very traditional, but not brutal way. She understood negative reinforcement training very, very well. She was also very keen on learning clicker games; touch this, touch that, lift up this foot, move sideways, back up, go to a mat; she was a brilliant learner, and I loved working with her.
If I could go back to that January and stop the clock there, I would have had the perfect horse. Now, I was not riding her much because it was either snowy, icy, wet, muddy or slippery or some combination of the above. I did ride, but not much. And I did not notice that Kayak was getting more and more pushy all the time. I thought her enthusiasm for learn was a terrific sign, and if the horse had been a dog, it probably would have been perfect. I know what to do with enthusiasm with a dog. As it turns out, I did not know what to do with enthusiasm with a horse. Furthermore, if the truth be known, I was becoming less and less comfortable with her under saddle.
On the 20th of March, the year Kayak would turn five, we had a beautiful, warm, sunny early spring day, and my husband and I chose to take the horses out to ride. I got out to the barn first, and groomed, tacked up, and went out to mount. While we waited for John to mount his mare, Kayak and I rode up a small berm on the edge of my driveway, and a motorcycle accelerated very unexpectedly. Predictably, Kayak spooked and then because we were on an inclined surface, she stumbled and likely bucked again. I am not sure. All I remember is flying up very high above my horse and rotating in the air, and then landing. On the back of my head. You can now insert the discussion of how important helmets are when riding horses. Every single ride. Every single time. Had I not been wearing a helmet, I likely would not have survived. As it was, I suffered a pretty serious head injury that has changed my life forever.
Not her fault though, right? Well, right! She is a horse and I was way overmounted. That one event started an eight year odyssey of seeking and eventually finding help. Of taking dressage lessons and becoming a much, much better rider. And of making choices time and time again about this horse, who, although she was sweet and curious and my whole world, was also anxious much of the time, and unpredictable when things got difficult for her. When we were doing clicker training on the ground, she became very dangerous; she turned her heels on me several times and threatened to kick when the lesson did not make immediate sense to her. She chased me in the pasture one day, and the only reason she did not run me down was that I rolled under the fence.
Our final choice came when I least expected it. We had worked hard together, and with a lot of support from a wonderful trainer, we had conquered most of our problems. We were 45 minutes into a one-hour ride when she tripped in the arena and fell on me. To be clear, this was a complete accident, and not a behavior problem, but nonetheless it was the first step in a long series of steps that led to the end. I was injured again in the fall and didn’t remount for several months. When I finally was able to ride again, something was not quite right. Over a period of six months, we brought Kayak back to work gradually and over time we were able to walk, trot and canter, but she was not quite right. Over the course of several months, we tried to figure out what her physical problem was, with the help of our wonderful veterinarian. We did blood tests, a DNA test, radiographs and ultrasound. In the end it turned out that she had damaged her right knee very badly. She would never be sound enough to ride again.
Happy times. We worked together regularly. We rode out of the arena. Before the final accident but after the problems.
I don’t believe that keeping a horse means that you must ride. You can keep horses without riding them, but for Kayak, not being ridden meant that she began to show the dangerous behaviors we had worked so hard to overcome. Part of keeping Kayak safe was our strict regime of riding her 5 to 6 times a week. When I could not do that, and when we alleviated her pain, she began to get frustrated at the lack of mental stimulation and physical exercise. At first, she took out her frustrations on her herd mates. Horses do shift hierarchies from time to time, so we did not really notice anything at first; it is not like we live in the field with the horses. Then, she dragged me for a couple of kilometers when I went to take her out for grooming. We took her to the arena as often as we could (ice was an issue, so we could not always get there) and played clicker games with her. The final incident that really told me that we had done all we could for Kayak, my pretty girl, my special first horse, was when at the end of a very successful session, my coach went to walk her back down to the paddock and she had a violent outburst where she bucked and spun and exploded while being walked down a very well known path, to her herd, to her food, in the care of a multi award winning upper level dressage rider. She was dangerous, and even if her dangerous behavior was not directed at anyone in particular, she was no longer safe for most people to handle.
I have shared this whole story in order to show all the things that this horse had and that she deserved. She had good training (in the end; I was not experienced enough at the start!) She deserved only the best training. She deserved the best food. I gave her that. She deserved a great vet. Check. She deserved green grass, a place to seek shelter and a herd. I gave her every THING I could. But, you may think, did she deserve to die?
We need to think hard about what we mean when we say “deserve,” when it comes to death. “Deserve” implies that the individual is somehow worthy, and taking away my mare’s life feels like she may not have been worthy. Kayak was worthy. She was amazing. She taught me so much. She was magic. Yet, at the end of the day, I had her euthanized. Euthanasia means “a good death.” If my mare deserved anything, she deserved to live pain-free and confidently. We can point to many potential contributing factors, but in the end, Kayak was never an easy, normal horse. In the end I freed her from her demons. I believe I gave her a gift. I gave her peace.
Death is not something we earn. It is something that comes to every living thing. When we choose euthanasia for an animal who is dangerous, I believe we are not handing out a sentence or a consequence. We are bringing them to peace. It is often said that death is not a welfare issue, but life is. I know that Kayak suffered. I know that I helped to end her suffering, and I took away all the factors that lead to her having bad welfare in life. Perhaps what we can say about our behavioral euthanasia cases, is that they do deserve a good death.
Kayak was my very good friend. We loved one another and I will miss her forever. When it was time to let her go, I did so with love.
When we do this we take away all the things that lead to welfare so poor that the animal behaves abnormally and cannot live a good life any more. Giving an animal friend the death they deserve means letting them go in the most loving way possible. For me and Kayak, that meant letting her have all the things she loved best. I let her sniff every manure pile on the farm, and fed her pounds of mints, and sat with her while she found the stray patches of grass under the snow. It meant not asking for any behaviors beyond those necessary to get her from her paddock to where we helped her lie down for the very last time.
When we are working as behavior professionals, we need to be aware that, no matter how hard we work, some of our work will end with a behavioral euthanasia. When this happens, it is important to remember that death should never be something that a being “deserves”. You will die and so will I; we won’t earn it, but it comes to every living thing. When we talk about euthanasia, we should remember that we are offering the gift of a good death. A good death is a respectful action. Those animals who go through a behavioral euthanasia should go through it surrounded by the same love and understanding that Kayak had. They should go through it only when it is necessary, but when it is necessary, our behaviorally troubled animals still deserve a final day that is peaceful and not traumatic.
A respectful behavioral euthanasia should also take care of those who are left behind. For me, that means remembering my beloved Kayak often. Her picture sits above my desk and I look at her sweet face frequently, and I tell her story whenever I can. Remembering Kayak helps me to honor all she gave me for so many years. This may not be what works for you, but taking some time to find healing rituals can help you as you help the animals in your care. Even when that means saying goodbye, as they cross over into whatever comes next.
