Loveland woman rescues horses from slaughter

LOVELAND, Colo. ( KDVR ) — Each year, tens of thousands of horses are shipped across the border to Canada or Mexico for slaughter, according to the Humane Society of the United States . One Colorado woman is now making it her mission to take in as many of those horses as she can.

Ruth Altman started Cito’s Rescue in October 2022, and it all began with a horse out of Arizona.

“She was in really, really, really bad shape,” Altman said. “She’s the thinnest horse I’ve ever seen in my life. Her feet were curling around, and they made her trot for the video, and she couldn’t even walk.”

After that, the 25-year horse veterinarian sold her clinic to devote more time to rescuing horses.

“I didn’t think this is the direction my life would go,” Altman admitted. “And it’s pretty much taken over. I do some vet work on the side as a rehab veterinarian. I do that to pay the bills because this does not pay me anything.”

This labor of love took her to rescue horses from kill pens, or horses destined for slaughter.

Horse slaughter and horse meat were banned in the United States in 2007, but transporting horses is still legal.

“It just made an [outflow] of horses going to Canada and Mexico,” Altman said.

She said this means horses must make the long, and often stressful, journey for sometimes thousands of miles.

“They pack them in and it’s not a happy process at all,” Altman said. “They’re not allowed to be stallions crossing the border so they will castrate them without anything.”

And once they finally make it to the place where they will be slaughtered, Altman said it gets worse.

“It is not a humane slaughter, because there’s no euthanasia per se for these horses,” said Altman.

Over the years, Altman said she has been able to rescue roughly 16 of these horses and get them healthy since many come to her with underlying issues. One horse she rescued was in rough shape, barely able to walk five steps.

“He had, I think, five abscesses, hoof abscesses. Ran blood work, and he’s got liver disease. We suspect now that he was exposed to some type of plant toxin in Oklahoma before he came to me,” Altman said.

While dealing with the physical issues, many of the horses who come to Altman have also had some mistrust in humans, like a little horse named Ruby whom she rescued. Ruby had some unexplained deep scarring on her neck.

“She had a lot of trauma associated with the halter. So, halter training was very difficult after that,” Altman said

Now, Altman said she is rescuing two more on Monday. But deciding who to rescue is never easy.

“There’s 10 horses behind these two horses that are going to go to slaughter because I can’t pick them all,” she said.

While it’s difficult work, she said it can be rewarding when she sees her rescues flourishing in new homes.

“I mean, that’s all I can ask for,” Altman said.

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