Marvyn

By the time Marvyn was just three years old in 2018, he’d been rounded up from Stone Cabin, Nevada, adopted, and dumped at a meat auction in California. 

He is just a lover, an easy keeper, moves beautifully, is eager to please and does everything asked of him, so somebody had obviously put a lot of time into training and working with him. Usually, these horses are wearing cheap rope halters, but Marvyn arrived in an attractive turquoise halter that makes us feel he was loved at one time and taken good care of. It made no sense that this handsome, sweet mustang ended up in this situation.

We sent his brand to the BLM and learned he was untitled. They contacted the adopter, who said Marvyn had been with a TIP trainer for a couple of months. After that, she claimed to have given him to a stranger to do a few test rides, but the horse was dumped at auction early the next morning. She did not remember the name of the man or have his telephone number. Apparently, this kind of story is typical of adopters who get caught selling a mustang without title.

Marvyn is handsome, sweet, and we all adore him. We called him “Hollywood” when he lived in Malibu because of his movie-star good looks and swagger. A post we put up of him sound asleep snoring broke the record at that time for our most viewed video.

I’m really not sure that a life of domesticity would have suited him, but I can tell you for sure that he loves being free. He put on weight standing around in smaller pens, a problem that resolved itself when he had open space and hills to run. 

At the Oregon ranch, Marvyn integrated into a semi-tame group of boys, including Jalapeño, Butler, Bobcat, Koa, Patron, Eastwood & Redford, Slash & Ripley, Scarecrow & Tinman. He fell right back into innate wild habits as we saw when he made it clear to Slash that he could not be bossed around, so merging with some really wild guys out there was just a natural thing to do.

#skydogmarvyn

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.