They shoot horses, don’t they? — No

By George Schwarz
and Megan Smith
The Amarillo Independent

When Bar-K, a 20-year-old horse, broke his front leg in February, owner Cynthia Swinney found out what a Catch-22 is.
Swinney complained that no one could help her with the situation that developed the evening of Feb. 15 when she came home from work to find Bar-K had a broken leg.
“He was standing and leaning on the shed and shaking,” Sweeney said.
At first she thought the horse had colic and thought she had to keep him standing. But as she walked in out of his stall, she realized his leg was broken, she said.
“He was dragging it. It was broken just below the shoulder. He would walk with his three legs in a circle dragging it behind him and it was a front leg,”
Swinney said she put a blanket on Bar-K because he was sweating. Meanwhile, Swinney’s mother started going down the list of the veterinarians to call, first calling their regular veterinarian, Dr. Robert M. Harben. She couldn’t reach him right away and so her mother continued to call other veterinary hospitals. But Harben is elderly, not well and also has a sick wife.
Swinney said she called Timber Creek Small Animal Hospital and a representative said they didn’t make house calls.
The hospital, contacted for this story, did not return calls.
Swinney said most of the calls went to answering machines and none of the veterinarians responded. She even called a vet in Carson County who demurred.

Cynthia Swinney recalls how her horse died.

A veterinarian who runs a mobile animal hospital called back just as the city of Amarillo’s Animal Control officer arrived at her home, she said, so she told him that animal control was supposed to take care of the horse.
But when she learned that animal control wouldn’t euthanize the horse, she called the mobile veterinarian back, she said.
But Dr. Chris K. Morrow, of the Amarillo Mobile Veterinary Practice, said he had no record of the call.
“I don’t have any record or recollection of this woman or her horse having called or ever been treated through my practice,” Morrow said.
According to a report the Animal Control Department provided, Swinney became upset when the animal control officer told her that he thought it was simply a welfare call.

Part of her agitation related to having told the dispatcher that a horse needed to be euthanized. The animal control officer wrote that he contacted the veterinarians to get a referral for someone to help euthanize the horse and had no luck. He also contacted the Humane Society, but only got voice mail.
Animal Control lacks the capability of euthanizing large animals, said Shannon Barlow, assistant director. “I think it was (that) nobody knew what to do. Basically, the lady needed a vet.”
Because it was a large animal, Animal Control doesn’t have the equipment or drugs to put a horse down. Nor does it have a lift to help dispose of the carcass, Barlow said.
The animal control officer also contacted the Potter County Sheriff’s Department, the report stated.
At first, Swinney thought the sheriff’s department would dispatch an officer to euthanize the horse but later learned otherwise.
Potter County Sheriff Deputy Chief Roger Short said the department does not use its service weapons to euthanize large animals unless it’s an emergency such as a motor vehicle-animal situation when a roadway needs to be cleared quickly.
Short said: “That’s not the way it ought to be done. That’s why we refer someone to a veterinary clinic with the proper utensils and drugs.
“They need to call a vet and have it put down humanely.”
Freedom Ward, Swinney’s daughter, said she helped with some of the phone calls and talked to a dispatcher, who she thought was an Amarillo Police Department employee, and Ward concluded they were aware of the situation because the dispatcher asked, “They still haven’t taken care of that horse?”
The dispatcher on the phone told Ward that she would talk to some officers who had horses and Ward could overhear the discussion in the background. They were compassionate about the situation, but the dispatcher told her there was nothing the police department could do because it was her private property.
When Ward asked if the police could do a “civil standby” so Swinney could shoot the horse and not be arrested for discharging a firearm within the city limits, they also declined, Ward said.
“And I hear the lady’s compassion and she’s really trying to get me some help,” Ward said.
Swinney said she had some animal painkillers, but the drugs were not powerful enough to put the horse down.  She stayed in the corral for the night. He  was up most of the night and lay down and died at 5 a.m., Swinney said tearfully.
Animal Control’s Barlow said the difficulty in finding a vet might have been a one-in-100 situation or the vets contacted may have been busy that night.
Or perhaps there are simply too few vets who treat horses, Morrow said.
“Horses are large and complicated animals and they need ongoing supervision of care, both by owners and veterinarians,” he said.
“There are not enough horse vets or practices in this area to call last minute and expect immediate treatment or euthanasia on a horse.”
Barlow said the lesson in this situation is to have a regular veterinarian.
“You plan ahead when you own an animal that is that large,” Barlow said.
“If you’re going to own a large animal, you need an established relationship with a veterinarian that you can contact and know that you’ve got those types of services.”
Morrow agreed.
“I can tell you, however, after many years treating horses exclusively, that Bar K’s owner, and all other horse owners, should have an established relationship and ongoing treatment through a regular veterinarian practice,” he said.
“But if this woman had had that relationship, any vet who treats her horses would have come virtually regardless of the hour, to assist her in ending the horse’s suffering.”