If you’ve never done it before, congratulations, try to keep it that way. If its your first time you’re going to want a tube of greese paint or some chalk. Draw an x using it from the left eye to the right ear, and the right ear to the left eye. The convergence point is the thinnest part of the skull. You’re going to want to use a small caliber hand gun for this next part. .22 is what most vets recommend. A police service pistol is way too much and will make a huge mess. You’re going to shoot the horse at the center of the x with the gun held very close, but not directly on the horses head. The idea is you cannot miss from this distance, but you also won’t create a pressure problem that causes the gun to misfire. The idea with all of this is its the least likely for mistakes. In an emergency, such as shipping a horse overseas on a plane, a trained attendant will use a higher caliber handgun, such as a .38, and skip the x, instead eyeballing it.
So wait, lemme get this right: when horses are flown overseas, the humans in the flight require an additional human to be present alongside the horse, with a loaded .38, to “eyeball and shoot the horse” in any case of risk, within a pressurized metal tube at 10km altitude, traveling at several hundred kmph?
Isn’t that a recipe for disaster? Wouldn’t it be easier to drug the horse into oblivion, before takeoff? 😳
They are sedated to oblivion. Its just that like any sedative or anesthetic it can wear off if things get so stressful that the drugs turn out not to be enough.
And in such case, rather than a taser, or any incapacitating weapon, we go with one that can perforate a fuselage in one go? Sounds ill advised, but if it works it works. 🤷 I’ll leave it to the pros and the people who actually are risking their lives to decide what best fits their needs. All I know is I would pray the sedatives don’t wear off, because I don’t feel better than the horse about the alternative…
The horses that ship internationally like this are generally worth $1M+ so its not like this was the solution every settled on as “eh, good enough” and more like, even with all this time and effort, this is still the beat solution we can come up with. Also for what its worth, I don’t know that this measure has ever been taken in my lifetime. The sedatives have always worked in every case I’ve know. Putting down a horse in international shipping for safety is an extreme edge case
Nah, I didn’t fly much, or in ages. Tooth pain an pressure changes don’t go well together. 😬
But I can totally imagine that being crammed in a metal tube for hours at a time, alongside several dozen/hundred other humans, can very easily become an unpleasant experience.
If you’ve never done it before, congratulations, try to keep it that way. If its your first time you’re going to want a tube of greese paint or some chalk. Draw an x using it from the left eye to the right ear, and the right ear to the left eye. The convergence point is the thinnest part of the skull. You’re going to want to use a small caliber hand gun for this next part. .22 is what most vets recommend. A police service pistol is way too much and will make a huge mess. You’re going to shoot the horse at the center of the x with the gun held very close, but not directly on the horses head. The idea is you cannot miss from this distance, but you also won’t create a pressure problem that causes the gun to misfire. The idea with all of this is its the least likely for mistakes. In an emergency, such as shipping a horse overseas on a plane, a trained attendant will use a higher caliber handgun, such as a .38, and skip the x, instead eyeballing it.
Welp, that’s enough Lemmy for me today.
Both my parents were large animal vets. I kinda didn’t get an option not to learn this
Interesting although solemn
The actual article is mostly the same unless I missed something
Why would anyone kill a horse prior to flying them overseas?!
Attendants ride with the horses when shipping overseas. If a horse panics it can imbalance the plane leading to catastrophic failure
So wait, lemme get this right: when horses are flown overseas, the humans in the flight require an additional human to be present alongside the horse, with a loaded .38, to “eyeball and shoot the horse” in any case of risk, within a pressurized metal tube at 10km altitude, traveling at several hundred kmph?
Isn’t that a recipe for disaster? Wouldn’t it be easier to drug the horse into oblivion, before takeoff? 😳
They are sedated to oblivion. Its just that like any sedative or anesthetic it can wear off if things get so stressful that the drugs turn out not to be enough.
And in such case, rather than a taser, or any incapacitating weapon, we go with one that can perforate a fuselage in one go? Sounds ill advised, but if it works it works. 🤷 I’ll leave it to the pros and the people who actually are risking their lives to decide what best fits their needs. All I know is I would pray the sedatives don’t wear off, because I don’t feel better than the horse about the alternative…
The horses that ship internationally like this are generally worth $1M+ so its not like this was the solution every settled on as “eh, good enough” and more like, even with all this time and effort, this is still the beat solution we can come up with. Also for what its worth, I don’t know that this measure has ever been taken in my lifetime. The sedatives have always worked in every case I’ve know. Putting down a horse in international shipping for safety is an extreme edge case
You never met a passenger on a plane who needed to be euthanized for the benefit of everyone else?
Nah, I didn’t fly much, or in ages. Tooth pain an pressure changes don’t go well together. 😬
But I can totally imagine that being crammed in a metal tube for hours at a time, alongside several dozen/hundred other humans, can very easily become an unpleasant experience.