Horses by Heart

07/09/2025

Simple lead changes‼️👌🏼👏🏼

03/09/2025

Ambree: “Pick me up, please?” Sister: “Gladly”‼️🥰
❤️

30/08/2025

What @$$holes leave in our beautiful wilderness. INFURIATING‼️😡 Thank God for people like Gabe and his family!

30/08/2025

24/08/2025

🤎💛

Cracker Barrel's stock plummeted $94 million Thursday after the country staple restaurant pushed out an unexpected rebrand.

They missed out on the exploding popularity of the western lifestyle market. A no-brainer for anyone paying attention to the barrel horse world!

22/08/2025

Greg and Bryn gettin’ it goin’ on today - good stuff! 👌🏼

18/08/2025

Food for thought on a Sunday night. 💔

Opinion: Why America Must Stop Buying Buckets and Fix the Roof of Horse Rescue

By Allison Bowling, Executive Director of Red Feather Equine Sanctuary

There’s a saying that captures the crisis in horse rescue today: why fix a leaky roof when you can sell buckets?

The leaky roof is the slaughter pipeline. Each year, tens of thousands of American horses are shipped across our borders to be slaughtered. This is not the result of a single failure, but of a system riddled with cracks: overbreeding, the increasing cost of animal feed, hay and veterinary care, limited owner support, and the absence of a national safety net for equines. The most effective way to end this suffering is to repair the roof - to prevent horses from entering the pipeline, strengthen legislation like the federal SAFE Act, and expand sanctuaries and rehoming programs that provide lifelong security.

But fixing the roof is slow, difficult work. It requires coordinated policy, sustained funding, and a willingness to confront root causes rather than symptoms. It doesn’t lend itself to emotional livestreams or viral social media campaigns.

Buckets, by contrast, are easy to sell. In today’s horse rescue economy, buckets take the form of individual “bailout” pleas from kill pens. A horse is paraded before donors with a dramatic deadline: “12 hours before he ships.” For a fee - often arbitrarily set by the very dealers profiting from slaughter - supporters can “buy” that horse’s safety. Each animal becomes a bucket, offered to the public as a way to temporarily stave off the flood.

The problem is that buckets don’t fix leaks. They perpetuate them. Every bailout dollar rewards the kill buyer, ensuring another horse is purchased cheaply at auction to replace the one ransomed. The slaughter pipeline doesn’t shrink; it expands. And yet donors are left believing they have struck a blow against the system, when in reality they have only enriched it.

This “bucket economy” siphons attention and resources away from real solutions. Advocacy organizations working to pass anti-slaughter legislation struggle for funding. Sanctuaries providing lifetime care are overlooked. Programs that help struggling owners keep their horses—preventing them from entering the pipeline in the first place—remain under-resourced. Because roof repair is slow and unglamorous, while buckets offer the instant gratification of a life seemingly saved in real time.

There is no denying the emotional power of a horse’s face pressed against the bars of a kill pen. But donors deserve to know that the choice is not between buying that horse’s freedom or allowing it to die. The real choice is between fueling an exploitative cycle, or investing in strategies that will make bailouts unnecessary altogether.

If Americans truly want to end horse slaughter, we must stop buying buckets and start fixing the roof. That means rejecting ransom schemes, no matter how urgent they appear, and redirecting support toward organizations tackling root causes. It means demanding passage of the SAFE Act to permanently end slaughter exports. It means funding sanctuaries, rehoming programs, and veterinary assistance initiatives that keep horses out of the pipeline entirely.

Buckets may offer momentary relief, but they guarantee the leaks will continue. Fixing the roof is harder, slower, and less dramatic. But it is the only path toward a future where horses are no longer exploited, trafficked, and discarded for profit.

The roof is collapsing. The question is whether we will keep buying buckets—or finally insist on lasting repair.

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Pictured is Red Feather’s Ruthie, a Hurricane Helene survivor whose owner tragically passed during the storm. After being taken into county custody, Ruthie was deemed unsafe for adoption following a serious injury incident. Red Feather was asked to provide her a safe home — without financial support for her intake, and with no sponsors to date. Her story is a reminder of the unseen challenges and costs of responsible sanctuary work.

12/08/2025

Stop on by and see my girl Kat, if you’re looking for something fun to do!?

12/08/2025

I SO miss doing these fun events with HotShot!