Standards of Care

In order to ensure standards are appropriate, serve the animals and move our sanctuaries forward, we have established two imperatives or foundation statements. These imperatives are the foundation upon which present and future standards and guidelines are built. The Equus imperatives for animal care are:

Life Enrichment - the first imperative against which all decisions regarding the care and handling of nonhuman creatures should be measured is life enrichment. An enriched life is a life which has:

Shelter Nourishment Health Care Companionship Play Dignity

Species Specific - the second imperative is the recognition that animals have a life of they're own, specific to their own species, separate from humans and therefore have separate and distinctive needs. All decisions, objectives, plans, goals and sanctuary/facility designs should reflect these needs rather than the need of humans to be efficient.

Global Village Perspectives

Communication and transportation technologies have made our planet a small community or village. And, like all villages, everything is interrelated and interdependent, whereby an initiative in one area affects every other area. This is the foundation for our education efforts and is the basis for our sanctuary open door policies as well as our support of The Association of Sanctuaries and the American Sanctuary Association. The creation of a better and more compassionate village is the creation of education environments. This we do by creating a place of peace, safety and healing and staying involved in the larger sanctuary community.

Sanctuary Environment

We believe sanctuaries should be designed for animal life enrichment and global human reformation. From the front gate to the end of the property line, there should be a sense of safety and peace. Animal areas should be designed for spacious happy environments and no animal should be housed alone. Grounds need to be clean and open. Humans and sanctuary creatures should coexist in a pastoral setting free to explore natural interaction. We have used gardens settings with walkways and benches, designed as a natural habitat for birds and small native creatures as places for reflection. This is our goal for Equus. As we do not believe the present property is able to facilitate this type of environment we are actively looking for a new facility where the horses can have comfortable, enriched lives.