Career ending injuries

[BitofaLegend]

Why are trainers still putting dogs down with career ending injuries when grnz will now pay to fix then? I see another dog got put down last night for a fractured hock

[aquaman]

Because some injuries become welfare issues. Example multiple fractures. There was a dog at Addington recently that suffered multiple fractures to the shoulder, and Stipes wouldn't allow dog to be euthanised because of new policy, but dog was in great discomfort and pain so had to be taken home only to be put down later. Examples such as this are not common but do happen, and sometimes for the sake of the dog its better to put them down as this is the humane thing to do.

[BitofaLegend]

1 hour ago, aquaman said:

Because some injuries become welfare issues. Example multiple fractures. There was a dog at Addington recently that suffered multiple fractures to the shoulder, and Stipes wouldn't allow dog to be euthanised because of new policy, but dog was in great discomfort and pain so had to be taken home only to be put down later. Examples such as this are not common but do happen, and sometimes for the sake of the dog its better to put them down as this is the humane thing to do.

I think the dog would rather get the injury fixed and live a long retired life.

[Chaser]

1 hour ago, BitofaLegend said:

I think the dog would rather get the injury fixed and live a long retired life.

I'm going to disagree with you on this legend. As a past owner of dogs we saved a dog who broke a hock. The 6k vet bill was never an issue.  He lived his life with me at home and I can honestly say the dog never had a quality of life. He had a constant limp, an ouch everytime he got off the floor. Would I do it again? Simple answer NO. Was the dog happy? NO! And I would be one of the biggest animal lovers in the country. 

[Yankiwi]

5 hours ago, aquaman said:

There was a dog at Addington recently that suffered multiple fractures to the shoulder, and Stipes wouldn't allow dog to be euthanised because of new policy, but dog was in great discomfort and pain so had to be taken home only to be put down later.

I chalk this up as another example of the disconnect between the Stewards & GRNZ.

GRNZ provided a very clear guideline a year & a half ago, which in this incident the Steward seemingly chose to either ignore or wasn't aware of it in the first place. So why wasn't the Steward penalized for his poor decision making which was clearly wrong? Are Stewards above the GRNZ rules & policies?

https://www.grnz.co.nz/Files/Documents/On-Track Euthanasia Guidelines for OTVs FINAL Dec 2019.pdf 

The dog suffered, surely the trainer and owners suffered as well. Yet the Steward was the only one to be in the wrong yet no-one even too the time to look in that direction. What does that tell you about the establishment?

[BitofaLegend]

13 hours ago, Chaser said:

I'm going to disagree with you on this legend. As a past owner of dogs we saved a dog who broke a hock. The 6k vet bill was never an issue.  He lived his life with me at home and I can honestly say the dog never had a quality of life. He had a constant limp, an ouch everytime he got off the floor. Would I do it again? Simple answer NO. Was the dog happy? NO! And I would be one of the biggest animal lovers in the country. 

Over my time in the industry, ive probably had 100+ broken hocks and other serious injuries and every dog ive saved has lived a happy retirement regardless of the seriousness of the injury.

Ive even had a few dogs get amputations where the injury was going to be to difficult to operate on. Every dog is savable and every dog can live a happy post retirement.

From my own experience, if a dog is in constant pain 1 or 2 yrs after the operation, that usually comes down to a poor rehabilitation phase (This isnt me saying the trainer did a bad job or yourselfs. Some dogs are simply very difficult to rehabilitate due to the nature of them).

[Chaser]

4 hours ago, BitofaLegend said:

Over my time in the industry, ive probably had 100+ broken hocks and other serious injuries and every dog ive saved has lived a happy retirement regardless of the seriousness of the injury.

Ive even had a few dogs get amputations where the injury was going to be to difficult to operate on. Every dog is savable and every dog can live a happy post retirement.

From my own experience, if a dog is in constant pain 1 or 2 yrs after the operation, that usually comes down to a poor rehabilitation phase (This isnt me saying the trainer did a bad job or yourselfs. Some dogs are simply very difficult to rehabilitate due to the nature of them).

That's fabulous to hear you saved so many. I followed the rehabilitation the vet set out, including driving an hour every second day to the vets so there was not much more I could do! Also the injury was very severe, but there was no way I was putting  the dog down.

 

 

[Freda]

I have a retired model, he is seven now, and I'm pretty sure he is happy.  He is certainly aware of his racing history, though, he gets off his couch and limps around for a few minutes before warming up and moving better.  

If he gets worse, as he gets older, I will certainly be watching his wellbeing...but for the time being, as long as he is kept warm and has plenty of space to self-exercise [ which he does by sprinting around the granny-flat in the back yard two or three times..!  ]  I'm okay with his condition.

I sympathize with the above comments, there is no one-size-fits- all solution.   And, as a trainer of thoroughbred racehorses,  I see so many horses, rehomed or otherwise, which have hellish lives and should have been euthanized right away.