Dahlia

Very shortly after we announced that Renegade and Lupine were coming to Skydog, we received a number of messages from people about their daughter, Dahlia. They told us she had been rounded up and was at the BLM corrals. Photographs were taken of her by  Beverly Shaffer. She looked heavily pregnant. And so our search for Dahlia began.

We headed up to the pens, photo in hand, but there were dozens of mares, who were still pregnant or had babies at their sides. Many resembled Dahlia, but didn't have the right blaze or socks. When we couldn’t find her after touring the facility several times, we figured she had been adopted out.

When Renegade's adopter, Stacie, was here, she went to the corrals. We asked her to keep an eye out for Dahlia. She took a video to identify her. She was the big bay mare high white socks walking to the left, just out of frame, with her baby, Outlaw, walking at her heel. We applied to adopt them both. It was our Year of Family and we couldn't pass up an opportunity to bring some of Renegade’s and Lupine's family back together. 

The South Steens beauty of both parents is evident in Dahlia. Sleek, soft, tall, elegant, and strong, she looks like a shiny show horse. We would also adopt Dahlia’s 2018 baby, a splashy pinto named Fern, and her little foal, Rebel. Mothers and daughters took comfort in one another and healed from their ordeals, while Rebel and Outlaw played together under their watchful eyes. When the colts were big enough, we released them all onto open spaces, where they move about with different branches of a large, wild herd.

Family is everything to wild horses. We are committed and determined to continue our mission to reunite some and, more than that, to illustrate the incredibly loving bonds these horses share. The miracles that occurred on the search for Dahlia led to even more mustangs coming home to Skydog.

#skydogdahlia

American 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 2025 (H.R.1661 in the House and S.775 in the Senate). This bill would amend the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. Commonly known as the “Farm Bill”, this omnibus federal law includes several important provisions for animals. Among them, the Cat and Dog Meat Trade Prohibition Act, which makes it illegal to slaughter, transport, possess, purchase, sell, or donate dogs and cats, or their parts, for human consumption. This SAFE Act would extend the prohibition to equines. Specifically, prohibiting a person from knowingly slaughtering an American equine for human consumption; or shipping, transporting, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donating an American equine to be slaughtered for human consumption. 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.

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.

You can also tell your Rep and Senators that you want these bills from the previous Congress introduced again this session:

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.