ISABELLA (IZZY)

Beautiful Isabella was our last save on Giving Tuesday in 2021. Donors brought me to tears as we blew past our goals, enabling us to bring this lovely mare home.

An incredible woman in Florida stepped up and paid for 17 kill pen horses to prevent them from shipping to slaughter. They were all Adoption Incentive Program (AIP) horses dumped the second they were titled after the adopters got $17,000 in tax payer money. A mare in the group was seriously injured with a nasty open leg wound. It would have become infected if she’d remained any longer in the filthy kill pen. She looked lost and in pain and needed immediate veterinary care. Our hauler picked her up, took her to quarantine, and then brought her to us.

At intake we did a pregnancy test and found out we had saved one more life. Izzy was going to have a baby. Her belly grew bigger every day, but her due date was anyone’s guess, so we focused on giving her the best diet and care. She settled nicely into the birthing suite in the barn, but ran around with Cookie every day.

Mothers usually go away from the herd to have their baby in the dead of night. Isabella chose a snowy day in the light at the end of December. At Skydog, we usually only discover the newborns early the following morning. It was a rare gift and great honor for us to be able to witness the miracle of equine birth. It never ceases to amaze me how these winter newborns come with full winter coats and quickly learn to stand on their legs, able to run from danger, if necessary. Horses are prey animals and foals are born for survival. We named her perfect little girl Wildheart in honor of our dearly departed Lionheart. He had survived an unimaginable trauma that left his hoof dangling from his leg, another connection to Izzy with her injured leg.

Wildheart will never know the terror and abuse her mother suffered. She is gentled, and only has happy days to look forward to. Isabella seemed to sense that they were safe with us, even if her past experiences made her distant. If a human approached the stall, she anticipated danger and immediately nudged Wildheart to her feet. If she moved too slowly, Izzy called for daughter to follow her outside. In her grogginess, Wildheart wanted to nurse, which Izzy allowed to keep her calm while monitoring for potential danger. She was and is in every way a wonderful mother.

When Wildheart was big enough, they went into a larger pen with Ladybug and her little mule, Firefly. They were also joined by aunties Hera and Strongheart, two wild mares who were fiercely protective of little ones. The day finally came when we turned them out and watched them scamper into the aspen grove. The final step in Isabella’s healing was returning to open spaces and joining a herd. We were tickled to see one of the boys snaking Izzy and Wildheart in an effort to claim them as his mares. Izzy didn’t go along with the idea, and Wildheart followed her mother’s lead, but how wonderful it must have been for her to perform these wild rituals and show her daughter how to be a mustang mare.

#skydogisabella

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.