Top NOtch & Dune

10 Years of Skydog

What better way to celebrate our 10 year anniversary as a sanctuary than by rescuing some wild horses? Seeing the joy of Top Notch and Dune when they realized they were safe in a beautiful place with plenty of food and the kindest humans was the greatest gift of all.

Top Notch is a 19-year-old mustang from South Shoshone. This is in the Callaghan complex where summer roundups began with ferocity this year. In the videos of him being ridden at the kill pen, he was trying to do all he was asked by the man on his back. He was torn up badly, I have never seen so many wounds, cuts and bites on a horse in my life.

I looked up his brand and was shocked by his history.  In 2008 and 2009, he was moved from facility to facility starting at Litchfield, California, to Elm Creek Maintenance Facility in Nebraska, to the Northeastern States District Office, back to Elm Creek, to Southeastern States District Office, to Paul's Valley, Oklahoma, to the Oklahoma Field Office, and back to Paul's Valley in April 2026. He had been repossessed by the BLM this year for "inadequate care" - and It had to have been pretty serious as they never do that anymore. A couple days later, he was sold (!) by the BLM from Paul's Valley, Oklahoma. He went to a place that gives horseback rides in South Padre Island with a weight limit for riders of 300 lbs! Then he was dumped in the slaughter pipeline. The insanity of it all. This is what they call management of our wild horses. All on the tax payer’s dime, our taxes pay for the suffering of this poor horse.

I named him Top Notch, which means the best, the highest quality. It describes a horse who ranks at the very top of his class. He may never have been treated as the excellent boy he is, but we’ll see to it that he is from now on.

Dune is from Sand Springs, Oregon, which is amazing. We don't have a single horse from that herd. I read all about the land he was born on to get to know him. He was rounded up as a baby, adopted out as a yearling, and landed in a kill pen in Stroud Oklahoma 19 years later. He was traded in for a younger, fitter model who could work harder. A tame senior, he looked scared and confused at the kill pen, but I saw hope and kindness in his eyes. I can’t understand the way people dispose of a horse who has been part of a family and worked hard. With us, he will never be defined by his usefulness and can get back to just being a horse.

It was a long haul and Steve Egner drove them carefully at night to keep them as cool as possible in this current heat wave. Santa Ynez welcomed them with 70 degrees and a breeze. They had a full welcoming committee with some wonderful volunteers who came up from Malibu to help greet them. Dune turned to look at Steve, as they walked to his stall, as if he couldn’t believe how nice it was here. I believe love is an energy and the more of it they feel coming at them when they step off that trailer the better.

We gave them time to decompress and monitored their intake of good food and clean water, making sure they didn’t colic. Their cuts were treated with triple antibiotic. We took care of Dune’s eye and sprayed some silver honey sprayed on his wounds. It wasn’t long before Top Notch relaxed so much, he was sleeping soundly on his bed of soft shavings. 

We let them out into a small enclosure where they had green grass and room to run. Dune ran and jumped and kicked for joy. Top Notch joined in the fun, stopping frequently to take more mouthfuls of hay. They played with the two sale authority rescues they traveled with. Beautiful three year olds, who will stay with us before heading on to Sweet Beau Horses, a wonderful organization that will get them into training and good homes. The BLM is funneling so many young mustangs into the slaughter pipeline and we are happy to work with other rescues to help as many as we can.

#skydogtopnotch   #skykdogdune   

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.