CHIEF & HAWK

We were contacted by the BLM corrals about a young mustang who was going to have to be euthanized. He sustained a severe leg injury during the roundup and was not getting any better from it. We drove up to take a look and see if there was anything we could do to help him.

He had been put in a small pen with another injured horse who seemed to be doing better. They were both young - only 2 and 3 years old - and were rounded up the previous October from Warm Springs. They were so bonded, never leaving each other for one second. With all the noise and commotion of a working corral with over 800 horses, they were both very spooky and moved constantly due to the stresses.

One of the hardest things to do is to spend time with a horse, look into their eyes, then walk away knowing their immediate fate. We wanted to take these lost boys and help them, gentle them, so we could treat their injuries and do whatever we could to get them well.

We have seen incredible cases of stallions in the wild with serious breaks and fractures managing to heal and live long and happy lives, albeit with a mangled leg. Compared to that, Hawk’s injury was not that bad. He was not ready to go to heaven and we believed we could help him. We wouldn’t dream of taking him without the friend he depended on. We named the roan Hawk, the appaloosa Chief, and brought both of them home.

Chief immediately realized their circumstances had improved and ran around bucking and jumping for joy - which, to be honest, is his reaction to most things in life. He’s one of the most lighthearted, goofy mustangs I’ve ever met. Years later, we rescued another horse from his herd - Mr. Bojangles - who looks and behaves so similarly, we suspect they are related.

When we were examining Hawk in the chute at the corrals, one of the BLM adoption staff, Patty Wilson, said, “If you can get this horse sound, I’ll faint.” His fetlock was infected and so swollen, he couldn’t put any weight on it. That didn’t stop one of the wranglers from running him into a dead end. He went down and we thought he had died. 

Hawk was one of those borderline cases. Janelle worked hard with him to quiet a sensitive force. This was back in the days before we had a hydraulic chute at the ranch, but she was able to give him antibiotics every day. We had heartfelt conversations about where to draw the line between his pain and the time he needed to heal. Janelle had built a relationship with him and knew him better than everyone. She advocated strongly for giving him time.

Dr. Shannon Findlay, our wonderful vet from Bend Equine, talked about Hawk in the Skydog Horse Love Podcast S2/E1

I think about Hawk a lot. He goes into a small category of horses, who changed the way I thought about medicine, and the capability of horses to heal. I’ll always remember him for that. He had a massive arthritic and infectious process going on inside one of his joints - an injury that I would have considered terminal. Ninety-nine percent of the time does, it does not end with a horse having any sort of quality of life. 

I’ll never forget that day in the arena when we were trying everything we could to get a better understanding of what was going on. He kept trying to allow us to be near him, but then he just couldn’t. It took a long time to get those x-rays, despite the sedation and all of the handling. When I saw them, I felt devastated for him because it really didn’t seem like he would recover. We knew what we knew from the x-rays and began the limited treatment we could provide him.

Very quickly after that, Hawk started to improve. He would stand. He started walking better. He just defeated everything we know about biomechanics and the way that bones heal, the way that joints heal. He fused a joint that doesn’t fuse, the fetlock joint. We don’t operate on fetlock joints as that doesn’t even happen with surgery. Now he’s running around free, living his life with mares behind Sheep’s Rock, all rocky, rugged terrain. I’ve learned that mustangs are different than other horses. After working almost 8 years with Skydog, I think of them differently. 

When we first saw him, I hoped that at the least we would be able to give him a good quality of life in a pasture. Hawk had other plans. That fetlock is noticeably bigger, but now he runs with ease on rugged terrain behind Sheep’s Rock.

He was timid and shy in the beginning and failed to make it in a few mixed herds. Then he met Elsa, whose twins, Hope & Promise, were still babies. The girls were besotted with him and gave him the confidence to protect his new family.

From there, he went on to be reunited with Chief on a thousand acres of land. He tossed his head, kicked up his feet for joy, and rubbed all over his best friend. Since then, he’s acquired a lot of mares, but he’s not a possessive leader. With the help of a little divine intervention from Angel, he and Phoenix share them harmoniously in a large herd.

#skydogchief   #skydoghawk

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 two Senators to urge them to support these bills. 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

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”. There are several important provisions for animals in that omnibus federal law, including the Cat and Dog Meat Trade Prohibition Act. It is currently illegal to slaughter, transport, possess, purchase, sell, or donate dogs and cats, or their parts, for human consumption. The SAFE Act would extend the ban to equines and 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. 4356) The bill would eliminate the use of helicopters in rounding up wild horses and burros, and require a study into alternative methods for humanely gathering the animals.

Ejiao Act of 2025 (H.R. 5544). 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.

See our How to Help menu for other actions to ban zebra hunting at canned hunt ranches in Texas & Oklahoma, bringing an end to the BLM using Sale Authority to funnel wild equines into the slaughter pipeline, and stopping production of Premarin & other drugs made from pregnant mare urine.