Angel

“A spiritual being, who stands in her divine light ”

Angel is a little sorrel mare with a white star and a heart of gold that is brimming with compassion and kindness. Her name describes her personality to a T. She’s a spiritual being, whose ability to forgive humans and stand in her divine light is beautiful and inspiring.

We saved Angel, a filly, Scout, a colt, and Colorado, a senior mare, from a kill pen in Kansas. The three arrived at Skydog and clung to one another like survivors of a shipwreck that washed up on shore together seeking solace. Supposedly wild and crazy, Angel gentled right down once she no longer had to fear for her life. This is what usually happens when rescues are treated with the kindness and respect that does not exist in kill pens.

We were told Angel was pregnant, but she wasn’t. Her belly was big because it was full of worms. Scout was also terribly wormy and so young and frightened.  Emaciated and weak as Angel was, she devoted herself to comforting and caring for him. This is her self-appointed role at Skydog. She’s an angel in need and it comes naturally to her.

She’s one of the horses, like Gabriel and Cosmo, that we bring in to help other horses in need of reassurance. When her work is done, we release her back out with her herd.

Ghost smashed her face while being run into the trailer too hard at the corrals. Angel joined her and went with her in the chute when she was scared.

While Blue Moon’s eye ulcers were being treated, Angel stood by her when she was in the chute to comfort and calm her.

When Jack Sparrow came to us after having one eye removed, Angel helped him integrate into the herd. She protected him from any horse coming too close and introduced him to mares who would become his friends, Skye and Hope.

When Phoenix and Hawk started sharing a huge parcel of land, there was some tussling over mares in the beginning.  Angel negotiated the peace between them. They have been living in harmony together ever since. Angel is loyal to Hawk, but she moves between all groups, wherever she’s needed.

Angel bonded with Emmaline, who was found beaten bloody, starved and tied to a tree in Alabama. Many of the horses here have survived abuse, but Angel has a radar for those in need of solace. 

Angel and Scout were the very first mustangs we found in the slaughter pipeline almost a year to the day after the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) launched its disastrous Adoption Incentive Program (AIP). The program pays adopters $1000 per wild horse or burro, ostensibly to give them a good home. After a year, the adopters receive title. As compliance checks are deliberately minimal to non-existent, many adopters neglect the animals for 12 months. Once they receive their final installment of federal money, they sell them for their meat price to increase their profit. Then they turn around to adopt more and start all over again.

We’ve rescued dozens more AIP victims to provide the evidence that the BLM said they’d require before believing this was happening. They leave it to the public to supply this, not federal bureau mandated by law to protect the animals. Years later, they have all that evidence and more, not to mention a lawsuit we’ve joined with the American Wild Horse Conservation (@freewildhorses) to shut the program down. The BLM continues to deny any knowledge of their mustangs or burros going to slaughter, but thousands of unhandled, branded, wild equines have been dumped in kill pens since this corrupted program was implemented. The AIP could more accurately be named “Pay to Slay” or ”Subsidy to Slaughter”. It has become clear that it was designed to allow the BLM to wash its hands of all responsibility by paying middlemen to dispose of federally protected animals, no penalties, no questions asked.

#skydogangel

Mustangs and burros need your help 

In addition to supporting our work by donating, becoming a patron on Patreon or sponsoring a Skydog, there are several important pieces of legislation to protect American equines currently moving through Congress. It only takes a few minutes to contact your Rep and Senators and urge them to support these bills:

Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act of 2023 (H.R. 3475 in the House / S.2307 in the Senate). This bill will shut down the slaughter pipeline that sends some 20,000 American horses and donkeys to savagely monstrous deaths in foreign slaughterhouses every year.

The Wild Horse & Burro Protection Act of 2023 (H. R. 3656) This bill will prohibit the use of helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft in the management of wild mustangs and burros on public lands, and require a report on humane alternatives to current management practices.

Ejiao Act of 2023 (H.R. 6021). To ​​ban the sale or transportation of ejiao, a gelatin made from boiling donkey skins, or products containing ejiao in interstate or foreign commerce, which brutally kills millions of donkeys primarily for beauty products and Chinese medicine.

You can Contact Members of Congress by calling the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121‬, submitting contact forms on their individual websites, or sending one email to all three simultaneously at www.democracy.io

See our How to Help menu for other actions to ban zebra hunting at US canned hunt ranches, stop production of Premarin & other PMU drugs, and defund the Adoption Incentive Program.