Many people experience their first connections with animals through relationships with dogs, cats or horses. Just as these bonds are powerful and pervasive, so must our advocacy be since companion animals face myriad injustices and difficulties in the U.S. and around the world. We’ve already detailed the incredible progress made against the dog and cat meat trades in 2023, but there is much more to say on other fronts. Here are just some of the ways we created a more humane world for companion animals in the past year.
This week, a few hundred industry participants have gathered in Shelbyville, Tennessee, for the 80 th annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration: an event that has over the years seen many cruelly treated horses -- victims of a practice known as horse soring -- exhibited and their owners...
Horses dying at the racetracks with alarming frequency is a sadly familiar scenario of late, but even by that measure the body count over the past week is nothing short of astonishing. Since Friday alone, three horses have been euthanized at Santa Anita Park in California. First, it was a four-year...
This Friday, with the release of Disney’s “Black Beauty,” a new generation of moviegoers will be introduced to Anna Sewell’s beloved story of a horse who goes from a carefree life as a foal to one filled with troubles before returning home to peace and love. The book, narrated as an autobiographical...
By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson The last horse slaughter plants in the United States closed years ago, and Congress has consistently voted to prohibit funding for horse slaughter inspections within U.S borders. Unfortunately, this does not prevent the inhumane transport of American equines to other...
The appropriations bill and accompanying coronavirus relief/stimulus package for fiscal year 2021 now advancing through Congress will bring critical and much-needed support to millions of Americans. We are also pleased to report that the package, which funds federal agencies, includes a number of...
By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson The federal government has filed a brief strongly defending a law that would expand the ban on cockfighting in the United States to Puerto Rico, Guam and other U.S. territories. Cockfighters seeking to overturn the ban have challenged it in federal court, claiming it...
Federal prosecutors have charged more than two dozen racehorse trainers, veterinarians and drug dealers in a “widespread, corrupt” scheme to dope horses to push them beyond their limits, increase profits and cheat the betting public. “This is the most far reaching prosecution of racehorse doping in...
Over the weekend, the 86th annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration concluded in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and we are determined that this be the last Celebration with abused walking horses on display. A rule finalized earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and slated to take full effect in February 2025 gives us reason to hope our decades of work to end this practice will come to fruition. However, there are last-ditch efforts to block this essential rule through lawsuits and political pressure, which is why we must continue to press the issue. Members of the Humane Society of the United States’ Equine Protection team traveled to Tennessee to evaluate the condition of the horses at the show, and here, Keith Dane, senior director of Equine Protection, gives an account of what they saw.
For years, the government, through the Bureau of Land Management, has attempted to control wild horse and burro numbers by rounding the animals up and offering them for adoption. It was during one such roundup in the year 2000 that a flashy sorrel and white yearling was picked up in southern Oregon...
Update 5/8/23: A total of seven horses died at Churchill Downs in the days leading up to and on the day of the Kentucky Derby, and five horses were scratched. In light of these facts, it is shocking that the race was even run. Lives are on the line: The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act must be...
As mom to an animal-loving daughter, it warms my heart to see stories of children who are working to make the world a better place for animals. We have all seen these on social media or maybe in our own homes and neighborhoods – children who ask for donations to animal shelters instead of birthday...