Milo

This incredible mustang was 15 years old when we saved him on Giving Tuesday 2024. He joined Casper, Snow, and San Jose as the fourth gray horse we saved that year, followed by Snowball. He is our very first mustang from New Mexico. We now have wild horses from every single US state except Montana.

Milo was rounded up from Bordo Atravesado in 2011 when he was just a baby. It was a bait and trap operation, yet 8 mustangs died from “acute/sudden injuries”. This usually happens when the terrified animals crash into metal pannels and gates, breaking their legs and necks.

We don’t know where he was all the years before he landed in a kill pen the first time. We do know he was “saved” by a fraud “rescue” a few months prior to the time we found him in a Kansas kill pen. They raised funds for him and other animals, then betrayed them horribly by dumping them back into the slaughter pipeline. Milo was terrified, shaking, and confused as he paced. Our friends @3sistersequinerefuge took two young fillies from his group and Milo came to Skydog.

Milo is an older, tame boy, who wanted us to believe he was a wild dragon horse when he first arrived. He put on a good show, lifting his tail as he pranced and snorted. At some point in his past, he was gentled. Janelle had no trouble haltering him and leading him out to his new pasture. As always with new rescues, we wanted him to have some friends as soon as possible. Patron and Cosmo, in their gorgeous winter coats, were the first to meet him. After performing the perfunctory motions of male mustang introductions, Milo trotted off to meet the rest of the gang. 

Our original plan was to turn Milo out on open spaces, but something unexpected happened. He formed a close bond with Charlie Eyebrows, who goes lame every time he’s out on hilly, rugged terrain. He prefers the easy, soft ground of his roomy 40-acre pen with stunning views of Sheeps Rock in the background. These two don’t want to be separated, so we will leave things just the way they want them. First friends can be extremely important to mustangs who’ve lost so much in their lives. Waldo and Bonbon joined this group, as did Tristan & Finn, as well as Hemingway and Domino for a little while. Whenever we shoot a video, Waldo breaks into his love song for Clare as Charlie & Milo make their entrance side by side.

If you read about Milo’s Herd Management Area (HMA), it consists of nearly 20,000 acres, yet the AML is set at 40-60 horses. This is a ludicrously low number that threatens the genetic viability of the herd. A minimum of 150 horses is required to prevent inbreeding.

Milo’s herd comes in an array of colors including buckskins, roans, grays, palominos, bays, sorrels and blacks. There is a mixture of vegetation with poetic names like black grama, New Mexico feather grass, sideoats, blue grama, galleta, sand dropseed, bottlebrush squirreltail, burro grass, Indian rice grass, wolftail, winter fat, mountain mahogany, and sumac. Elk, mule deer, pronghorn, coyotes, and songbirds all share this land and are allowed to live there in peace - just  not the wild horses, who belong to this ecosystem just like the rest of them.

Milo moved from horror to his forever home. He quickly understood his circumstances got a whole lot better. Skydog is the last stop for wild - and not so wild - souls, when they take their first steps out of the trailer and walk into their bright futures.

#skydogmilo

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.