R.T. Fitch’s life has been anything but ordinary. Straight out of high school, he joined the U.S. Air Force Band during the Vietnam era, and while stationed in Hawaii, he spent weekends at Sea Life Park training penguins, sea lions, and whales. His path through life has taken many unexpected turns—including more than a few lessons in love—until meeting his wife, Terry, brought a lasting partnership and a shared passion for animals.
Over the course of his adult career, R.T. worked internationally in multiple countries, gaining a broad, global perspective that colors both his worldview and his writing. Now rooted in Texas, he and Terry live on a small farm surrounded by four-legged companions with paws, claws, and hooves. Together, they have devoted years to equine rescue and wild horse protection.
An ordained volunteer chaplain and professional Santa Claus for a local historical society—with Terry by his side as Mrs. Claus—R.T. brings warmth, wisdom, and joy to every season. His work reflects a life of service, wonder, and connection to both people and animals.
He is the author of Straight from the Horse’s Heart, a moving collection of true rescue stories and spiritual reflections, and Fangs of Light, a supernatural tale steeped in symbolic and metaphorical storytelling. The first in a planned trilogy, Fangs of Light blends myth and mystery to explore themes of identity, redemption, and the power of empathy—offering readers not only suspense and intrigue but a deeper look at the light and shadow within us all.
By Mitchell Grogg of Chicago’s NBC Channel 5 Humane Society offers $2,500 reward for information that leads to arrest, conviction of Lady May Z’s killer An Indiana race horse found dead earlier this week was slain with a tool used to kill livestock, not a bullet as previously believed, authorities […]
Press Release from the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition 99% of Thoroughbreds have been administered drugs that are prohibited in the food chain Orangeville, Ontario: On May 31, 2012, the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition (CHDC) released its report “CFIA and the Art of Evasion”, http://canadianhorsedefencecoalition.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/cfia-and-the-art-of-evasion.pdf, in response to the Canadian Food […]
For the first time, the Calgary Stampede is acknowledging its unwanted rodeo horses are sent to an Alberta slaughterhouse for meat.
By Glenye Cain Oakford as published on the Daily Racing Form “I had a lot of hassle with it…” Viande Richelieu, the company that operates two of Canada’s four equine slaughterhouses, appears to be backing away from accepting Thoroughbreds for slaughter after their unusual move of returning slaughter-bound […]
In this day and age there is plenty that is going on to keep one from sleeping well and gaining a good night of much needed rest. Usually, I am pretty good at holding such monsters at bay and obtaining the required sleep to function properly for yet another day. But last night was a different story, several words of text and droning voices kept nagging at me through the mist of the night and I could not shake the feeling of dread and the threat of an evil presence as I floated through the fog with my head looking squarely back behind at where I had just been.
The letters of the elusive words rushed by so quickly I could not read them and the raspy voice droning away was unintelligible until this morning when I entered my office and read the words as clear and crisp on my own computer screen from a blurb that I had written, yesterday.
Toxic horse meat imported into the EU and Sweden from South America and above all Mexico may contain substances which are directly dangerous to humans.
The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) covert holiday weekend announcement of a planned public hearing on the use of controversial helicopters during much contested wild horse stampedes, to take place only hours later, drew the nation’s ire and resulted in the federal grazing agency conducting the sparsely attended meeting on May 29th while extending the period for comment until June 12th.
Today, May 29th, we celebrate the birthday of Cloud, son of the stunning, black stallion Raven and Phoenix, the palomino mare, who is 21 years young this spring.
Seventeen years ago today, Anni Williams and I were on Tillett Ridge in the Pryor Mountains engrossed in filming a young stallion trying to breed his father’s newly won mare. His father, Opposite, was off playing with nearby bachelors. The filly had successfully fought off the two year-old when his father returned to sniff his son, and I guessed that this young son would soon be “asked” to leave the family.
British author and ex-cavalryman J.N.P. Watson once said, “The horse is so lacking in malice and yet so dutiful and grave that when he suffers, it makes man so ashamed for the human race.”
Our horses have been willing warriors in many wars started by men. In the first world war, about 1.5 million horses were used as cavalry, and an estimated 500,000 died.
Although recent polls indicate that a vast majority of Americans are opposed to the slaughtering of U.S. horses for human consumption, a small minority of individuals have launched a backdoor misinformation campaign designed to re-open US horse slaughter facilities and in the worst case scenario factory farm horses for food.
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