Summer Breeze

Summer was born in 2018 to a mare named Stella on South Steens, where she was photographed as a baby by Shannon Pfipher. This is the closest HMA to Skydog Ranch in Oregon. Her journey from the roundup to a kill pen in Texas is pretty heartbreaking. We wanted to bring her home - and perhaps she has friends and family among the other South Steens mustangs we have rescued.

I named her Summer Breeze. She’s wild as the wind, but I wanted her to have a soft name with no link to her painful past. Her nightmare is over, now and forever.

She was adopted by a person who adopts a LOT of South Steens horses in Montana, where Summer gave birth to a foal in 2023. Apparently, a few hundred wild mustangs and burros have come through this facility in the last several years. The trainer said that this mare was hands down among the Top 5 Wildest - possibly the wildest.

Summer was sold with her baby to another person, who had several trainers out to work with her. Eventually, they decided to keep her baby, but sold her to yet another trainer, who supposedly was going to use her as a brood mare, if he couldn’t train her. I don’t know how many auctions she was run through before landing in a kill pen in Texas.

In the video from the pen, she looks like she recently had another baby. If so, they were also lost or kept for sale. Many Steens mares are adopted so the owner can get their pretty foals, then dump the mothers. The worst betrayal, it is devastating what these wild horses go through.

Summer didn’t want to give up her wildness, no matter what. The awful rope burns around her neck suggest the training increased in severity the harder she resisted. But that’s over now. We just had to bring her back to her homeland and give her the peace and freedom she needs so badly. We have no idea where her foal(s) are now. We pray for them and hope she will find peace being an auntie to our rescued babies.

So many donors and followers cared so deeply about her that we sped things up and posted her arrival in real time. Steve Egner drove her to Oregon, where I got tears in my eyes as her feet touched the sweet earth of her home. She was jittery. The Quarantine told us she was incredibly traumatized and does not like being alone. 

We placed her as quickly as possible with mares, who could hold space for her as they've been through similar horrors. All too often, the price of admission for many of these sanctuary saves is that they need us so badly after what they've experienced. Entering the pen to meet Midnight, Nova, Wren, Lacey & Blossom was her first step into a new life full of kindness, love and care.

Mares are usually harder to introduce than geldings - noisier and more aggressive, especially if they don’t like a newcomer. That said, I truly believe these wild mares are beyond intuitive and essentially psychic when they meet another. This group greeted Summer with such gentleness. Even little Blossom respectfully toned down her youthful exuberance. She - who has never know anything but love - understood the importance of this moment and participated in this sacred mustang ritual. All in one moment, they restored Summer’s hope, peace, and wildness as they exchanged breaths filled with promise, dignity and grace.

To me, they looked like victims recognizing other victims. They knew just the right way to direct their energy. Summer soaked it all up to replace the fear and anxiety that has been coursing through her veins for years now. All the loss, the terror, the not understanding what anyone wanted from her, began to fade. These healing mares helped her with every step she took, giving her their calm, strength and courage.

The next release was into Priscilla’s larger herd, where zonkeys and donkeys joyfully accompanied the mares. When they met the larger herd, they all turned to run together, like a flock of birds. It wasn’t long before we found Summer laying down in the shade beside Snow’s baby, Frost. Missy, Lisa Marie, Rising Sun, Luna, Nova, Blossom, Lacey, and Jagger were among those standing watch around them. I can only imagine how full Summer’s heart is to truly be a wild horse again.

#skydogsummer

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.