Marin Humane offers employees a paid, weeklong sabbatical related to animal welfare. I chose to spend this time volunteering at the Wild Horse Rescue Center in Webster, Florida. The large property with its sprawling trees and Spanish moss offers an enchanting refuge to animals and people alike. As the name suggests, their mission is to rescue and rehabilitate America’s wild horses. I’d arrived at the center late at night. Waking up that first morning, watching the herds graze on lush green pastures, I felt like I’d been whisked away to a magical place where animals are [...]

“Sadly, the stench of death overwhelmed the Kentucky Derby and its magnificent athletes on Saturday. Five horses perished in the past week at Churchill Downs. … Then, on the Derby undercard, two more died. Seven horses gone.” So begins a May 6 Associated Press article, in what has turned into an all-too-familiar refrain of eulogies for racehorses who died at the country’s most prominent racetrack. Year after year, news of “catastrophic injuries” and dying horses make the headlines — some of which play out in the public eye. In one notorious case in 2008, Eight Belles, [...]