Blame where does it lie….

Nookster

Nookster

Active Member
Oct 21, 2002
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This question runs through my head on most days since loosing Chinook. More so since most horse folk I speak to always come up with the saying “well whose fault is that” when I say that he passed on due to laminitis.

Now my heart is in shreds since loosing him, I would have done and paid anything to make him better and did so. But at the same time he became so ill and in pain I Had to sadly make the decision to PTS as he was suffering severely and I didn’t want him to go through that for my selfish reasons of not wanting to loose him .

Why are people so prompt to make assumptions? They don’t know the full facts yet have the audacity to comment/question on his passing just from the word ‘Laminitis’. …..

There are things I would change looking back – the main one is turn out. I would never keep my horse on hard standing for 6 months of the year again then turned out on to spring grass. But at the same time I grazed him throughout the winter in hand. They also had an increase in grass slowly before eventually going out. I wouldn’t have said he was on big energy feeds either. There has been a lot of talk about his vaccination a week before but I have never investigated it as what will it change? I sway more towards the vaccination since seeing problems with his injection before being put to sleep and that fact that had congealed in the vet’s car due to high temps.

What ever the cause it’s quite clear in my head why I lost Chinook and that is because of the mis diagnosis and the wasted time that he ‘wasn’t’ on box rest. It was nearly 2 weeks in total still moving around, also being travelled, trotted up at the vet hospital etc all adding to the damage. The hospital also giving him an early discharge, when I didn’t want to travel him home and was more than happy to pay for him to stay there. I also had several occasions when I specifically asked about his pulses, and at the time thought it was stress laminitis due to an injury. I even put him on box rest against the vet and removed all feed except hay etc.

I believe with all my heart that if he on his first day when the vet saw him had been on box rest he would still be with me now. To the cause I really don’t know if it were due to spring grass or a vaccination and truthfully I will never know but I have to live with the consequences.

What also grinds on me is the vets words after it all when he tells me about other cases he’s been out too and as soon as its lameness etc he has put them on box rest not taking the risk after what happened to Chinook. How the hell does that make me feel! Yes ok thankfully it’s helping save other horses but why did my darling Chinook have to be the one that made him more vigilant about his job.

So throughout all this I have to then deal with the people that know it all and say it is all my fault as the owner.

Sorry for the rant – I thought I was over this but its amazing how it can pop up in conversation and how people react to the fact you lost you horse to laminitis and how they want to blame you solely. I do take full responsibility for my horse but feel cheated when people that don’t know me or the circumstances chose to somehow tell me off and brandish me with a title of crap horse owner.

Wondering if any else has sadly experienced this?
 
jeeze, thats so crap hun :( Poor you, and your poor baby boy :( There are so many 'experts' out there who like stick their oar in:rolleyes: Im beginning to think that perhaps these people must be lacking somewhere in their own lives since they feel the need to judge other peoples:mad:
 
yes, we lost an old mare to a kind of wasting thing, didn't have a PM done, vet thought cancer. she was an old 27 at the time

our lovely neighbour insinuated it was our fault because we had the odd bit of bracken in the field, which obviously must have shredded her digestive system to bits.

folk are just class acts aren't they?
 
its not just you, years ago (about 16) my mums pony got lami at the time it wasnt reconised by the vet, she was told to walk it and it was given steriods... so in actual fact it was the vets fault.

what a terrible thing to happen to you, the people that are suggesting that it was your fault, personally id tell them to go and have a good read up on laminitus! it was not your fault, we put our trust in our vets and normally except what they tell us.

its not just you it happens to, i had a incident with my last horse that was the vets fault, it ended up being a possible life or death siuation, (abcess on the jugular vein caused by vet injecting) i was lucky that my vet later admitted it was his fault and more than refunded me, but to lose a horse in the way you have, id say is unacceptible, i can imagine that you are heart broken and very angry *hug and a glass of wine*
 
Hello,

This must be awful for you, I would just like to say that i admire you for the decision you made with Chinook, and don't you dare listen to those who think it is your fault as it isn't.

I feel for you as having pin come down with lammi this year for the 1st time with me i no exactly how hard it can be, luckily in a way, due to her having previous lammi we were able to diagnose it straight away.

You no you done right by Chinook so don't listen to those no it all types, a few at my yard criticized how i dealt with pin when introducing her back to grass, they said i was faffing around and i should just turn her straight out with no building up etc, as they hadn't done that with there horse, well i didn't listen and just oh thats how you done it was it.

You done everything possible for Chinook and im sure he new that, so chin up and remember the good times you had together.

**HUGS** coming your way:)

loz an pinxx
 
My current pony and my friends horses, suffer from laminitis!

We both have really different methods for managing it!

I am quite strict with my pony, she is exercised 2 times a week, is on restricted grazing, with no hard feed but she does get some hay to supplement the lack of forage! I know that this sounds quite mean but it works for her! She hasn't had it in 2 years!

My friend on the other hand, hates to see her pony on a small paddock and insists on having her in quite a large paddock, she does feed her hard feed sometimes aswell! This pony just has to look at grass and comes down with laminitis! She has had so many incidences of it i hate to think what has happened to her pedal bone and how much it has rotated etc!

At the end of the day there are so many causes to laminitis, many of which are unknown, also if you use a small animal vet they don't know alot about horses and the conditions that they can suffer from! Management strategies vary from person to person and nobody has the right answer!

I am sure that you did the best for your horse and that you made the right decision in the end x
 
Hi Nookster xxxxxx people eh, you know the truth and thats the important thing. Those that mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind. Like you say all the investigation in the world won't bring him back. You know I lost my horse, he was found dead in the field with all the herd circling him he was 10. I didn't see the point of a post mortem or any fields of investigation because it wouldn't bring him back. I would lean to the vaccination idea, I've had pony mares have attacks of lami after vaccinations, these are ponies that live out all year round and are good doer's. When they were vaccinated it was late spring, grass was good but none of these mares had had lami before.
 
It's probably going to be something that you'll be going over for a long time yet. It's not healthy to do but it's only human nature to look for answers. The sad truth is you'll probably never find one. I do think you were badly let down by your vet but of course I never saw Chinook and don't know the full circumstances so I can't comment more than that.

Laminitis is something that not a lot of people know enough about. Most will look at it too simplistically and think it's simply a case of ignorance on the owner's part. However, it's so much more complicated than that and owner's can be doing what they think is best for their horse and still get caught out. The sense of guilt you feel when it happens to your horse is bad enough, never mind having anyone else blaming you and making you feel like the worst owner in the world.

At the end of the day you did what you thought was right by your horse. You were there for him every step of the way and would have done anything to help him. The fact you put his interests before your own just goes to show how good an owner you were to Chinook. No-one has a right to judge you. It sadly won't stop them though. I just hope you can find away to disregard their negative comments (as hard as it is) because they really are not worth listening to.
 
At end of day you know yourself that you done everything that you could for your boy. You loved him and looked after him. Dont listen to anyone who says otherwise.. I lost my old guy last year i too wonder if i could have done things differently. To be honest we couldnt have and we only torture ourselves cause we find it hard to cope without them. Try and live with the good memories of your boy and all the good times you had with him.
 
i agree with most people on here - you as an owner did the right thing, i see the vet as at fault here.
You did everything you could and if the vet wouldnt have been so silly then maybe.. but you have to say you had good times with your horse,and that whatever happened that their happy now. :rolleyes:
Sure it'll be a long time before your over it, but just remember nothing that happened here was your fault; some things just, happen
(however silly that may sound. :) )
Anyway, im sure your ponies very happy now, and they wouldnt want you to be sad.
xx
 
Nookster, you know i beat myself up over what happened with bonnie. I spent months going through the what ifs. What if i'd got to the yard earlier? what if i'd chanced it, begged transport and rushed her over 100 miles to the vet school in edinburgh? what if i'd swapped them onto night-time turnout instead of daytime turnout? My list of what if's is quite considerable.

I also know the stigma of having a laminitic horse. We went through hell when an elderly lady who lives in the same sheltered housing complex as my gran discovered we had a laminitic pony. She thought she knew about horses coz her precious granddaughter has one and went around telling everyone we were cruel to our pony and that's how she'd got laminitis??!!! I tell you i nearly battered her!! The ignorance of even some supposed experienced horse people towards laminitis is actually quite laughable and i have no qualms in cutting them dead and telling them the exact truth about causes and treatment.

YOU did your very best for chinook. He knows that, we know that. You stopped his suffering and that's the best thing any owner can do for their horse. People in the horse world need to stop being so bloody bitchy and judgemental and voicing their opinions on situations they've not got the full facts on.
 
You know my opinion on the things that people have said.

Please dont blame yourself hun. You know I did for Kia and both you and Marsden said it wasnt my fault. There is no blame in what happened to chinook that had you involved in anyway.

If the lurkers and watchers are looking then keep your noses out of other folks business. Live your own lives and maybe for a minute take a look at yourselfs and what you look like to complete strangers.:mad:

Only the blameless and innocent can judge others.:mad:

Hugs for you hun and you know where to find me!!!

Nikki xxxx

ETA - No offence intended to anyone but the ones who know who this is directed to :)
 
If we could turn back time and take back what we know now we would probably do things differently... It is certainly not your fault though in end you done what was in his best interest and thats what most important! People have absolutely no right to blame anyone for something like... It takes a very weak person with very little to do in life to make up such awful accusations!
 
I am so sorry to hear of his passing..

I honestly don't know anything about the topic but my heart goes out to you. For what it's worth, when I hear a condition that is fatal to any horse, I would not leap to look for blame. Particularly when knowing nothing of it.

I bet you would have done anything you could to prevent and or treat this if you could have. And see the degree of pain in your post. It doesn't help when someone has to run off at the mouth and inflict further pain when you're already down. If he was in pain, what else could you do? That surely was not the easy or painless way.

people that need to kick someone when they are down should seriously look into themselves to see what the dysfunction is.

(((((Nookster))))))

RIP Chinook
 
well i have never blamed an owner for a horse getting lami, nor have i heard of anyone else doing so, so i dont know what mean person has sparked this but there's obviously a thorn stuck up their B.T.M for some reason.

even when i was following the thread during his diagnosis i never even assumed blame although i was suprised with the level of mis diagnosis - but that cant be your fault!

we cant live with what if's and i dont think you could of ever predicted that that would happen
 
Same thing happened to me when my mare got grass sickness. A new horse had been put in the field a week before and nobody told me this was happening, my horse went crazy with new company and she was severely stressed, i know this can be one of the factors of grass sickness but who really knows, but to this day i still blame that horse. The horse left the field a week later and my horse was dead. I often think "what if?" but it's to late now, at least i still have the memories.
 
I can't believe anyone could blame you for poor Chinook, that's just awful. Even following the story over the internet, as someone who doesn't even know you - it was awful, and frightening. I'm sure anyone who was following it at the time will remember the whole tragedy for a long, long time. I'm sure nobody who read what happened would think you could have done anything better. On the contrary, I can't be the only one who read it in absolute horror, thinking 'that could so easily have happened to me too'.
 
Please please don't blame yourself over what happened to your horse, and don't let nosey know it alls tell you any different!!

Laminitis is still an unknown quantity and can be caused by any change in the blood chemistry. Foaling complications can cause laminitis, there is no way to tell!!!

I have a 17 year old welshie who I have owned since he was 6 months old, he's just suffered a mild attack and my vet and farrier have put it down to the stress of moving house!! (He lived at his last yard for 16 1/2 years)

My point is that unless we wrap them up in cotton wool and feed them through a straw we are never going to be able to stop an instinct driven accident prone animal from getting in harms way. Its how you deal with it that counts, and by the sounds of it you did the best thing you could by calling in the vet, and ultimatly when you had to make the descision to pts you did it for him. I don't think there is anything else you could have done.
 
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If only we could turn back the clock huh. :( Just keep positive. Remember the good times and dont let anyone make you feel guilty. You worked hard to keep your boy alive. Damned hard IMHO. :)
 
I know exactly how you feel. Flash could have been kept in a stable on water and minimal hay and still taken lami.

I did my upmost to keep her lami free but between all the pain relief and then a major abcess which needed tons of pain relief and anti biotics, her liver started to fail, colic was becoming more and more recurrent and after every colic bout came a lami bout.

I had always told my vet that when the time came to say "Goodbye" that he would keep me sensible and give me forthright advice, he stayed true to his word.

Looking at Flashie the night before and the morning she was PTS you would have been pushed to say that something was wrong with her but her internal organs were failing. I had a choice, say goodbye to her that day and make her final moments calm and peaceful or watch her dramatically go down hill within in a few days and then perhaps find her "passed" in her stable.

I made a tough choice and was there with her until her final heartbeat, holding her and talking to her and letting her know that she was loved but still, 2 years on, I still think "what if", who made me god? what if I sent her to "rainbow bridge" before her time?
I also know that other liveries on my yard said that I had acted too soon. My vet assured me otherwise and as he's the professional and knew her inside out after years of treating her, I have to content myself that the decision was the right one.

Don't beat yourself up, don't listen to small minded nasty people who continually voice their opinions with no thought as to what their harsh words can do to someone who has made a traumatic and life changing decision.

(((((big hugs)))))
 
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