A difficult decision

Linda Chambers had a hard time letting go.

She'd brought her lame 25-year-old horse, Buster, to the Look Ahead Veterinary Clinic in Oroville Wednesday to have him humanely euthanized.

But saying good-bye was harder than she thought.

"I almost backed out this morning," Chambers said between tears.

NorCal Equine Rescue sponsored the event, which according to the nonprofit's founder, Tawnee Preisner, 24, is the first free euthanasia clinic ever held for horses.

It won't be the last.

A failing economy has led to more and more horses being dumped, Preisner said. Hay costs $12-18 per bale, and prices are expected to increase as the stuff becomes more scarce during winter months.

Boarding, hoof care, medical and dental expenses add up too, over the course of a year.

Euthanizing a horse by lethal injection typically costs between $300 and $500.

"No one's gonna do that in this economy," Preisner said. "People can't afford to keep their horses and they can't afford to euthanize them."

As a result, nearly all unwanted horses in the U.S. wind up being sold at auction and shipped to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada.

Their journey after sale involves several days of road travel without food and water, in cramped trucks with other strange and stressed animals, Preisner said.

In Mexican slaughterhouses, they are stabbed behind the head to paralyze their back legs, then strung up by one of those legs, cut across the throat, and left to bleed to death, according to Preisner.

Chambers wanted her horse, Buster, above all else, to avoid this fate.

"He's the sweetest old thing," said Chambers, as she led her badly limping horse to a double-wide stall on the veterinarian's property.

There, he cozied up to his old buddy, Stacks, another injured old horse who belonged to Chamber's friend and neighbor, Dawn Cook.

Stacks and Buster were scheduled to be euthanized together.

But on Wednesday afternoon, the horses' owners still had one last chance to kiss their horses, feed them carrots, and whisper best wishes for a happy equine afterlife.

At last, Chambers left her horse, closed the stable door, and walked away to cry alone in her truck.

This side of the horse rescue business, Preisner said, is not what she had in mind when she started NorCal Equine in 2003.

Her organization's primary focus is on saving and rehabilitating adoptable horses, and finding them suitable new homes.

In 2007, her fifth year in operation, she took in and ultimately adopted out 254 horses — most of them rescued from cattle auctions.

But the number of horses found neglected or for sale at auction yards is on the rise, she said, "and you can't save every one."

Her group vowed in April to raise $5,000 in donations each month to sponsor a series of euthanasia clinics, and has thus far, been successful.

The second clinic is set for December 17.

"It's terrible and sad, but there's not enough homes for all the animals," she said. "A humane and peaceful end is the best we can do."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Nancy Pasternack at 749-4712 or at npasternack@appealdemocrat.com