GIVIN G B ACK
MUSTANG RESCUES GET PERSONAL FOR
CLARE STAPLES-READ Sky Dog Sanctuary is a forever home for wild mustangs that have been taken from kill pens, auctions, and neglectful owners. With locations in Malibu and Calabasas, California, as well as the recently opened 9,000-acre ranch in Bend, Oregon, the organization aims to raise awareness for the plight facing America’s wild horse population.
I
remembered watching a TV show when I was growing up called Champion the Wonder Horse, about a band of wild mustangs. I used to fall asleep every night thinking about this herd of wild horses. I grew up around horses. I’m from England, and I’ve always loved them. When I moved to Los Angeles, I had a friend that kept a horse in a stable, and there was a horse there I fell in love with, a Palomino mustang. I started googling and researching wild mustangs. Now, of course, there are fewer and fewer. They’re in dire straits. It became a cause that my husband and I donated to. His mother’s love in life was horses. So, for him, donating to rescue horses was a way of honoring his mother. So we started off contributing to get horses out of kill pens, or to get horses from auctions to go to rescues or sanctuaries. But we started to see a perpetual loop of them
getting pulled out of kill pens, then I own had originally come from, so I being sold off by rescues, and ending up thought that, to turn them back out on back in the pens or in other bad situthe terrain that they lived and grew up ations. I realized in my heart that the on, that would be kind of a dream for only way to know these horses were safe me. was to give them a home. Once I had Most of the people that we employ filled my ranches here are either in in Malibu and a 12-step drug/ Calabasas, I decided alcohol recovery ONLY A LIFE LIVED we really needed to program or they’re look at doing this I’ve seen FOR OTHERS IS A LIFE veterans. properly. So, we equine therapy WORTHWHILE. bought a 9,000-acre work. I volunranch in Oregon. teered at a ranch in –ALBERT EINSTEIN I knew that many Malibu for about sanctuaries had two years to learn trouble with about it before we droughts; they needed to truck water in. started here. The transformation that I’ve I thought I should go somewhere that seen with veterans and addicts that use has a lot of water, so I chose Oregon. It’s equine therapy has been amazing, so it a place where a lot of the muswas something I wanted to incorporate. tangs that It’s been a labor of love. It’s all I do. I thought when I started that I could just bring in the right team and sit back and watch, and it hasn’t been like that at all. I’ve been out there shovelad e R sing le ap Clare St manure and birthing foals. We’ve now rescued 53 horses— well, we rescued 47, and five of the mares turned out to be pregnant. It has been a beautiful thing, because I’ve never had foals before. We have horses coming in very sick with strangles or respiratory Continued on page 108
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