Sanctuary or Retirement?

During the last several months, Traveller’s Rest Equine Elders Sanctuary received increasingly frequent requests to take in horses that “need” a sanctuary setting due only to age, or minor unsoundness. These requests come from both private owners and horse welfarists who are having trouble finding permanent homes for such horses.

It seems like a good time, therefore, to re-run a short version of TREES acceptance policy. TREES almost always operates at maximum capacity. Maximum capacity is determined by a combination of financial status, farm size, and available manpower and may vary slightly depending on conditions. Further, because TREES takes in the horses most other places won’t accept – those of the elder set with one or more “special needs” - most often, the only way a space at the sanctuary becomes available is when euthanasia is judged, by caregivers and vets, to be the most humane option.

At that time, if the Sanctuary is able to take in another horse, priority is always given to those that are not receiving even basic care. In other words, the horses that are not receiving food or vet care necessary to maintain life, or those that are suffering pain due to untreated injury or ailment. These horses may be animals that have been abandoned, seized by Animal Control officials, or whose owners have encountered financial or physical hardships that make keeping a horse impossible. Intake functions as a sort of triage process to determine which horse is in the most immediate need.

If an owner or caregiver is ABLE to provide care for a horse, that horse is not deemed to be in immediate need. If a horse is in a well-run rescue barn, that horse is not deemed to be in immediate need. If a person “bailed” a horse and can care for him properly, but now wants to move him along just so he or she can “bail” another, that horse is not deemed to be in immediate need.

TREES is not a retirement farm. The Sanctuary was not built just to provide a leisure home for all horses of a certain age. It is intended as a place of safety for those (over a certain age) who may otherwise slip through the cracks. Please understand that these spaces are reserved for those horses who, literally, have no one else ABLE to care for them. If you’re ABLE….do it.

“I’d Rather Not”

Earlier this month, Traveller’s Rest Equine Elders Sanctuary was invited to present a talk on Equine Elder care at the Equine Extravaganza in Doswell, VA. The talk lasted about forty minutes and the floor was opened to questions. The room became silent. Either I had told the listeners everything they needed to know about keeping weight on senior horses, or I had baffled them into a state of confused speechlessness.

Finally, in the last row of chairs, a hand rose. What a relief. Unfortunately, the question did not concern the topic of geriatric horse health.

“Do you take donated horses?”

I repeated the question into the microphone. “Do we take donated horses?”

I thought: “I can answer this question two ways.” First, I can explain why we don’t consider TREES residents to be donations. Or, probably more to the point of this specific instance, I can explain how we decide which horses we accept into the sanctuary. I chose to start with the latter.

The decision process is really quite straightforward. First, and perhaps most importantly, the sanctuary must have the room and resources to take in a new horse without jeopardizing the care of the current herd. Since the farm continually operates at maximum capacity, we often have a waiting list of sorts. There are always more Elders in need than there are places for them to go for care. Because we can’t take them all, we have a basic triage system. Horses who will immediately suffer hunger, untreated illness or injuries, or other life-threatening issues if left where they are at the time, are given first priority. Underlying circumstances may include outright neglect, abandonment, or owners’ physical or financial hardships.

The bottom line is that, when we accept a horse surrendered directly to TREES by his owner, it is because the owner is no longer able to provide even basic care, usually through no fault of his own.

Following this explanation, the lady in the back row began to explain that she had recently rescued a horse at New Holland (a large auction barn in Pennsylvania) but that the horse turned out to be several years older than she believed at the time of purchase.

I repeated the basics of our acceptance policy – horses not receiving even basic care, i.e. food, basic veterinary care, etc – and followed up with “Are you able to provide basic care?”

“I’d rather not.”

Silence. Her “I’d rather not” hung in the room like a noose.

Thousands of people who desperately want to be able to provide basic care to their horses, literally, cannot. You can see it on local bulletin boards, classified sites and on internet forums. They’ve been laid off. They’ve taken lower paying or part time jobs to put food on the table but don’t have much left over for hay. Some are working two or three part time jobs, which almost makes ends meet, but doesn’t leave time for the actual labor involved in horse care. Other people are losing farms, losing homes, moving into smaller, more affordable accommodations that don’t include space for horses (and if they can’t afford a mortgage payment, they certainly can’t afford to pay boarding facilities to care for their horses.) Even so, I am regularly amazed at what some people are willing to sacrifice to buy a bag of feed or a bale of hay.

Now, at the Equine Extravaganza, I stood looking at a woman who apparently could afford to care for her “rescued” horse, but didn’t want to. I took a deep breath and, for the third time, explained that those horses whose owners cannot provide basic care take priority and that there are always – always – more waiting in the wings. It will be a long, long time before TREES will be able take in a horse whose owner is able to provide feed and vet care but would “rather not.”

No Apologies Here.

The previous owner of one of our resident geldings is apparently uphappy that he received a visit from an Animal Control officer shortly after one of his horses was moved to TREES.

In seven years, TREES has asked law enforcement to look into only two situations.  For the most part, we feel owners respond better to advice concerning elder management than to any sort of "threat."  In addition, we don't want to have a reputation with local Animal Control officials as The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

However......when we take in a skinny lame horse, and when a sanctuary respresentative tells us she observed other thin horses on the property, we get concerned.  When a mutual acquaintence says the horse we accepted looked far worse when we got him than when she saw him only a few months before, the concern heightens.  And when, after being offered feeding advice, the owner himself tells us he "has no intention" of doing anything differently for the horse, that tips the cart. 

In this case, the advice was merely to change from a generic whole grain general livestock feed to any pelleted or extruded complete feed that could be softened for a dentally challenged senior.  No recommendations for a "top of the line" formula, just something that this particular horse could actually chew and digest to get some calories into him.

"I have no intention of getting a different feed for this one horse" was the wrong answer.  § 3.2-6570 of the Virginia Code states "A.  Any person who:............(ii) deprives any animal of necessary food, drink, shelter or emergency veterinary treatment;......is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor."  Knowingly giving an animal something he cannot eat seems to be depriving him of food necessary to his survival.

We understand that horse owners run into hard times and sometimes need to ask for help. We do not understand the declaration "I have no intention" of doing anything different.

No apologies here.