This is a report on our latest arrival at our Donkey Shelter, a much needed rescue.
We were alerted by our local Wolf Recovery Centre that an old donkey had just been offered by her owner as live feed for the wolves :(. The staff who work there, were very sensitive and they passed us the contact of the donkey’s owner
.
We didn’t have a minute to loose, in case the man changed his mind and sent the donkey to a meat merchant instead. So, we went to see her… we were told that she was old and a bit on thin side, but not much…
We parked the car and we walked across the fields to get to this donkey, out in a large paddock, amidst rumble and lots of barking dogs, all tied with chains.
Apparently she was fine; she had a nylon rope halter, tethered by a long rope to a stone, to prevent her from running off far. She saw us, and she came towards us… and as she approached, her smell was sickening…
and then we saw how hurt she really was. The rope halter, over the months, under the strain of dragging the stone to move around, caused friction on the poll and it cut into the flesh, at least 2”-3”, as these photos show.
There was signs of infection and the smell simply unbeareable.
Despite in pain, the donkey kept following us as if recognising in us her saviours… :'(
We came back later that day to treat her. She stood still, like a brave soldier. We removed the headcollar off the cut, disinfected it and applied an antibiotic cream and spray. Our vet wasn’t available (Bank Holiday
), so we had to do all the work ourselves.
Shortly after, a man came along, a friend of the owner, oblivious of the animal’s condition and suffering. But for the donkey’s sake, we had to keep polite and show a nonchallant attitude!
He then kindly offered to give us a lift back to our car… he told us that he worked at a pig processing factory; his livelihood is killing… pigs as a job, ox as a weekend favour for friends, hunting as a hobby…
We were dropped off by a sausage factory, and by now animals were being slaughtered… we had to walk a few yards back to my car, amidst the chilling cries of pain and terror… :'(
As you may imagine, this was a traumatising experience to me, as a vegetarian and I had to revert to my Reiki Mantras to ease the anguish that I was feeling and to baffle the screams in my ears… I just wanted to ran off as quick as possible...
The next day we went back to treat the donkey. The old lady looked weak and feable, but yet, she stood, while we treated her.
You can see how weak and sick she looked…
But the wound seemed to be healing well!
Then we had to face another problem… how to get her out of there, as we have no trailer, and with the expenses of the daily running of the Shelter, we cannot afford a trailer… Eventually, a local person kindly offered to arrange transport (a van also used to take horses to their final destination…).
The donkey was so weak that a 5 minute loading job took hours!
On arrival, we opened the door and she had collapsed. She was too weak to stand on her feet and to find balance.
Several attempts were made… none proved fructuous…
In the end, we had to resort to drag her and then to make her stand on her feet. I had to hold her head high, so that she got some balance…
She was so frail… her head felt like the heaviest part of her body. :'(
On her feet, she had to be pushed from behind, in order to walk up the drive way into her new home…
But there was a good sign. On seeing the fresh grass, she munched a bit. There is hope, I think…
