How to prevent your horse from becoming a rescue

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12 Tips To Help Prevent YOUR Horse Ever Becoming A Rescue...

(courtesy Second Chance Horse Rescue and Rehabilitionas i'm dealing with a horse rescue at the moment for a number of reasons, i thought this was some really helpful advice. Trying to rehome my aunt's 2 stb geldings. she left them in the care of my (elderly - 85yo) father (11), they are

Comments

[offroad]

Thank you so much for posting this. I actually already have a written agreement with a horse rescue that will take CC no matter what if, for some reason, I can no longer afford him. They keep all of their animals forever (long term foster possible) but all horses remain in the rescue's ownership until the time comes for them to go to the pasture in the sky. I wish everyone was responsible enough to think long term when it comes to horse ownership.

[aerinha]

This is an excellent post!!!!
I own a 3-year-old who is currently untrained and has some conformational challenges. I say over and over that my number one goal for him in his life is to make him as completely trained as I can - that if he can be Mr. steady, the horse that can be sold as a teenager's horse, a husband horse, a trail horse in addition to a performance horse or whatever - that that will be the best guarantee I can give him in life.
Of course I hope to keep him to the end of his days. But life happens! So in the meantime we work hard on ground manners and I'm saving to send him for proper starting, 60 days with a good trainer or more if need be.

As far as some of these other points go: my horse was *given* to me by a well-known rescue organization... with no application, no home check, no nothing. Why? because he was a throwaway. *sigh* Come on, folks, even the horse "no one wants" deserves a home check. At least he went with me and not someone else.

[harnessphoto]

Thank you for posting this. I work in rescue and it's so hard to tell people no. We are one of the largest organizations out there. We have rehomed over 2000 horses and follow up on every adoption for life. Even with our alarming turnover rate, we have a waiting list of about 150 horses, many of whom are sent to slaughter or abandoned before they get into the program. It never gets any easier to turn people away, but it's not a rescue if you have 500 cats living in your house, and the same thing applies to our non-profit. We are lucky that standardbreds are typically very sound, sane, and versatile horses who pick up new life skills quickly and easily, but I still see a lot of horror stories... mostly due to people not planning properly for their horses' futures. If more people thought ahead, I'd end up with a lot less pathetic rehab cases and preventable euthanasias on my doorstep.

[hagazusa]

Thank you for this excellent post which deserves to be an article in a major glossy horse magazine. This information is so crucial. I'm adding this to my memories!

[candysgirl]

And this is exactly why I've done everything I can to make my Arab as sane and bombproof as possible. I plan to keep him his whole life, but I realize that's potentially 30 years from now and a lot can happen in that time. He's 4 and in an arena is kid safe (we're working on trails) and I'm working toward getting him as push button as possible.

He's learning to do a little bit of everything, partially because I'm a very ADD rider, but also because the more things he's exposed to now, the better chance he'll have at a happy, loving home if I ever do have to sell him.