leonidas

Here is Leonidas. Only six years old and from Beatty’s Butte in Oregon. Dumped in a kill pen to be shipped to slaughter for his meat. This horse was rounded up and then sent to a prison facility in Kansas and saddle trained. Someone spent months breaking him to ride and then he was adopted out to a man who then never contacted the BLM again. He was most likely turned out as his feet were long, his tail was matted and he has a skin infection on his face and body.

This horse was utterly terrified of people. He had been traumatized and terrified by humans and even now has trouble trusting people or believing they won’t hurt him. He is beautiful. We were told he was black but he actually turns out to be a chocolate palomino with light highlights and an X on his forehead. When we found out it was #givingtuesdaynow we jumped on the opportunity to fundraise and save more horses than we had planned. And incredibly Gerard Butler stepped up and paid this horse’s bail and matched funds to encourage other people to step up and help the other horses get out. King of Sparta, Leonidas, you’re home. #skydogleonidas

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.

Bills from the previous 118th Congress that we hope will be introduced again this 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.