Thank you so much for answering my question. I never knew such places existed. I commend you for rescuing Valor and would never criticize you or anyone for removing a horse or any animal from such a horrible situation. I definitely think there is a special place in heaven for you.

Thank you, but I get a little embarrassed when people talk about how wonderful I am. I am not sure I am Heaven material....on the other hand, I don't think I've done anything bad enough to send me to the other place. Like many people here, I have compassion for animals. Horses have held a special place in my heart for as long as I can remember. I became more aware of the plight of kill pen horses on Facebook. So when I decided I needed a gentle, reliable horse, I decided to get a kill pen horse. There are some absolutely amazing horses that come from kill pens. And there are some stinkers....like my horse, Bane. I love him though, but I am too old and too busy to give him the attention required to rehabilitate him from a horse with many issues to a reliable horse for me to ride. But, he won't go back....so he stays with me. He is beautiful. A joy to look at. I don't have any regrets about saving him from the kill pen. And I got him in the nick of time. He had already been sold and was going to Laredo, to a man who buys horses there to send to Mexico. I was able to intervene and get him.

With the internet (social media)...the word needs to get out that this is happening because I guarantee you that 99% of the people do not realize this is happening. There are a lot of people with a lot of money and ranches here in the US...if they realized this was happening, I believe they would help take in these horses. I truly believe they don't know this is going on. I did not, but I don't have the resources to adopt a horse. Maybe all it would take is someone like Oprah or Ellen to start talking about it on their shows.

Yes, Bane! I've been wondering about him! He's a "stinker," huh!? I guess he makes up for it by being gorgeous! Thanks for the update on him. I've been wondering.

Will the the horses be corralled together? Are they both geldings? Can the donkey be with them too? I was also wondering about their ages.

I hope you're not annoyed, Vicky, because I've hijacked the thread a bit.

The horses can go out together. I have 4 pastures and right now and for the next month, Val needs to be kept away from the others because he might be sick. Bane is in a separate pasture than the other horses because his donkey is an escape artist. The fence needs work. It goes through heavy woods and need to clear some brush and small trees to repair it. The horses will stay in, but the donkey will leave. He comes back but I can't have him traipsing off down the road. Horses from kill pens suffer what is sort of akin to PTSD. The donkey is like Bane's service animal. He calms him. The donkey is 7 yes old, Bane is 15, Val and Mariah are 14. Gypsy is 16, the mule, Sabrina, is 8 and the oldest horse is TueLo and she is 30. Two more donkeys, Moses, 8, and Hobo, 7. Bane's donkey is named Amos.

Arkansas Girl, ranchers know all about this. They send more horses to auction ( and kill pens) than anyone else. There is something that the people who oppose slaughter have been pushing called the SAFE horse act. Their contention is that horse meat isn't safe for human consumption due to the drugs many of them have been on. I don't favor it because these same people are the ones responsible for getting slaughter stopped here and increased the suffering 100 times over. High minded ideas and reality do not mix. The truth is, there are many more horses than places for them. The high minded folks think that horses should just be humanely euthanized by a vet rather than sent to slaughter. Well that would be nice but people aren't going to do that. And then what do you do with the dead horses? They obviously can't think far enough ahead to figure out these details...hence why their little plan to stop slaughter here failed and caused so much more misery for the horses. If it sounds like I have disgust for those kinds of people, I do. More than that...I literally despise them. More than the people who own kill pens....who I also dislike but not as much as the do gooders.

I will say it again. Horse slaughter will not stop any more than the slaughter of any livestock for food. They should concentrate their efforts to bring it back to the US, and strictly regulate it and make it as humane as possible.

In the meantime I hope people will be more humane to all their animals. I don't see that happening either.

40 years ago in Wash.state we had the kill pens for horses, but back then they were regulated by the government. Just as cattle for meat was. Then some years later the inspections stopped needing to be done, and since they have become very bad places just like Marilyn C has sai d. I agree with her it will never get better, just worse.