Love At First Sight – Tim The Donkey

Love At First Sight – Tim The Donkey

The Elisabeth Svendsen Trust for Children and Donkeys (EST) is a UK based charity dedicated to providing riding therapy with donkeys to children with special needs and disabilities for which I am a volunteer.

I went down to the centre last week (the end of October 2011) to help out for a couple of hours in the morning.  We had four new donkeys who came to the centre a few months ago.  They have to be separated from the other donkeys for short while – a bit like quarantine, to make sure that they had not brought any viruses or unwanted ailments that could have been passed on to the resident donkeys, and also to get used to their new surroundings.   They then have to be integrated quite slowly as donkeys do have pecking orders, and being a new donkey joining an existing herd can be quite unsettling.  Fights can ensue, but soon differences are sorted out, the pecking order re-established and in no time they are all living as one big happy family.  One advantage of the four new donkeys is their size, so some of the resident donkeys probably thought twice about asserting their authority, as these would were big new boys they would be challenging!!

These new donkeys then have  to be trained before they are used for the rides, which does take a little while.  On this day Tim one of the new donkeys, was being used for rides for the first time.  I arrived at the centre

One of our new donkeys – Tim was on the donkey work rota and he was in the pen when I arrived.  Now I know I am not supposed to have favourites, but there are a few donkeys that I have more of a passion for, but when I saw Tim, it was love at first sight.  I don’t know what it was, but we bonded immediately.  As it was his first time with a child on his back, he did incredibly well and behaved impeccably.  He even had to contend with the indoor arena being decked out in a Halloween theme, which even the most experienced donkeys, are not quite sure and are very cautious, but he didn’t bat (pardon the pun) an eyelid.

After giving a few rides, he then stood for some of the children to groom him.  Again he was brilliant and stood extremely still.  I was holding him at the front, whilst another volunteer was standing behind him, to make sure the children get too close to his back legs, and was giving him a back massage, which he did seem to relish!!

I am looking forward to working with Tim again, and will try and make sure that the days I go down to help is also his day for working.

Love At First Sight – Tim The Donkey