Lucy
Lucy is one of the Peanuts Gang, a group of donkeys, whom we rescued together and named after characters from the Charlie Brown cartoon.
They had been treated so terribly that not all of them lived long enough to see Skydog - poor, old Viola passed on the way to quarantine This broke our hearts and is all too often with donkeys exposed to the stress and filth of holding facilities and killpens.
Lucy is strong like the character from the comic strip, but she doesn’t have a mean, arrogant, or domineering bone in her body. She is the essence of grace under pressure and patience.
We knew she was pregnant, but we didn’t know how far along she was - and burros carry longer than horses. It seemed to us like it was taking forever for the foal to arrive, so we can only imagine how Lucy was feeling as her belly swelled, but she showed nothing but forbearance.
Lucy was protected in the nursery, where we keep pregnant equines and their babies so we can watch them and help them, if necessary. In the quiet of the night, Lucy delivered the most beautiful, fluffy, white baby, Marcie Marshmallow. This little girl has given us and our followers nothing but joy and laughter from the moment we discovered her nursing at her mother’s side.
Lucy is an excellent, calm mother and it’s our pleasure to give her and her baby everything they need to thrive. They’ve been introduced to a pen with some of Lucy’s Peanuts friends, including Sally Brown’s baby Woodstock.
When those two are big enough, the day will come when we release them with their mothers and friends into bigger, open spaces, as we just did recently with Fufu and Bitsy. Until then, we treasure the closeness we have with them and thank Lucy every day for the beautiful gift of love she has given the world.
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.