A desperate fight to keep 15 ponies alive through winter!

We are fighting to keep alive 12 adult ponies and three babies who faced being shot in England.

Twelve ponies (we call them the Dartmoor Dozen) were hapless victims when their owner was evicted from his land. He had no money to feed the ponies and so they were starving. Another pony called Chocolate was so hungry that she had eaten a weed called Ragwort which is deadly to ponies. She suffered life-threatening liver damage! The others faced being shot and their meat sold to zoos.

The ponies were left to starve in a barren field until they could be shot!

AND three baby ponies are victims of a round up by local herders that went wrong. The ponies live on Dartmoor, a rugged wilderness, where they roam free but are rounded up from time to time for health checks. Our three baby ponies became separated from their wild moorland mothers and are too young to fend for themselves.

Usually, captured ponies are shot and sold off, sometimes to zoos, for their meat. There’s not much meat on baby ponies, but they were going to be shot anyway - just to be rid of them. Can you imagine that people are so callous that they can shoot baby ponies in cold blood?

Other ponies were simply dumped and left to starve!

Another pony called Tiana was abandoned and left to fend for herself. She roamed wasteland and car parks, trying to find food, while slowly wasting away. When she was found, she was in a sorry state - underweight, riddled with worms and sick from the pony equivalent of dysentery. She was so thin that rescuers at first had no idea she was pregnant! Vets thought Tiana would die... but with intensive treatment, she pulled through AND gave birth to a young foal named Winston.

No animal lover could learn about this terrible situation and not do something about it. As soon as we were informed, we offered our help to the good people of The Hugs Foundation, in Bodmin, England, who will give the Dartmoor Dozen a safe haven.

We have helped Hugs rescue ponies before and they never cease to amaze us. Hugs was already stretched to capacity. They knew it would be a struggle to care for another 15 ponies, particularly because the ponies are wild and not used to captivity. To make things worse, COVID-19 has seen donations to Hugs dwindle while, at the same time, there has been a sharp rise in the number of needy horses and ponies.

Hugs did not hesitate to help and, with our help and your support today, these ponies will now have a chance of a full life and perhaps find loving homes… if we can get them through the harsh English winter.

15 ponies need shelter from a bleak, harsh, cold, wet winter…

All the ponies need medical treatment. We have promised that we will assist with the vet bills, but it is also vitally important to build shelters to protect the ponies from the harsh winter that is underway. Winters in Bodmin are cold and wet with fierce, cutting winds and rains that drive through the wilderness area where Hugs is situated. Without shelters, the ponies face a very tough time indeed, and Hugs does not have the money to build the shelters.

With your help, we are trying to raise £5,000 (about $6,500) to get some shelters built and make sure this story has a happy ending. It is almost unbelievable how badly these ponies were treated - almost like vermin. Animal lovers won’t stand for that.

Please help by donating today if you possibly can. The ponies will be so grateful.

For the animals,

Brian and Gloria Davies (and Max and Flora!)
Founders Network for Animals

P.S. We just heard the tragic news that Chocolate passed away. The only small compensation is that, in her final days, she found a friend to comfort her - a partially sighted pony called Charlie. Poor Chocolate. It makes us so angry that animals can be treated so horribly. We could not save Chocolate, but we will do our best to save her friends. Please, if you possibly can, donate today. Without the help of people like you who love animals, things will be very bad for the surviving ponies come bleak midwinter.