Horse meat should not be consumed by either humans or our pets. Horse slaughter is unethical, cruel and inhumane and the meat from horses is not safe for consumption.
From the Humane Society of the United States:
“Horse slaughter, whether in U.S. or foreign plants, was never and cannot be humane because of the nature of the industry and the unique biology of horses.
Slaughter is a brutal and terrifying end for horses, and it is not humane. Horses are shipped for more than 24 hours at a time without food, water or rest in crowded trucks. They are often seriously injured or killed in transit.
Horses are skittish by nature (owing to their heightened fight-or-flight response), which makes accurate pre-slaughter stunning difficult. As a result, horses often endure repeated blows and sometimes remain conscious during dismemberment—this is rarely a quick, painless death. Before the last domestic plant closed in 2007, the USDA documented in the slaughter pipeline rampant cruelty violations and severe injuries to horses, including broken bones protruding from their bodies, eyeballs hanging by a thread of skin, and gaping wounds.”
Furthermore, most of the horses that wind up being slaughtered and in your dog’s food were never intended to be used for food. Many of them were young horses used in sports such as rodeos and horse racing and then discarded into the food chain. Most of the horses were given drugs that are listed as prohibited for human consumption. Drugs that are known to cause cancer such as Bute. And Bute is only one of many drugs found in the meat of horses. Even de-wormers and fly spray can wind up in their flesh. These drugs are certainly not something I would want my dogs to ingest.
