The sanctuary was started by Dr Elisabeth Svendsen in the late 1960s and since then more than 14,500 donkeys have been looked after in the Uk and in Ireland.
Through the Elisabeth Svendsen Trust some of the donkeys provide riding experience for children with special needs and disabilities but the majority just enjoy the freedom to stand about and be donkeys. Many come to the Sanctuary in poor health and with sad tales of neglect attached and after treatment join the others in one of the fields or specially constructed barns. They eat when they want to, they drink when they want to and the rest of the time is their own, apart from the occasions when they have to share their grooming sessions with the equally hundreds of members of the public that come to visit, and leave behind donations for their upkeep and for the continuing work of the Trust in all those countries where donkeys remain an essential beast of burden. The carefully maintained walks around the perimeters of the fields where the donkeys spend their days are lined with trees, each planted in the memory of someone who has been a supporter of the charity, and benches engraved with memorials, to wives, husbands, and pets provide welcomed rest for the continual stream of visitors that gaze on these curious creatures.
Whilst being the largest, the Donkey Sanctuary is not the only charity that looks after donkeys, and there are many more that look after horses. In fact there are more than forty separate charities here in the UK.
Up until the Great War the horse was part of everyday life and horses were still being used to transport goods up until the 1960s but, today, few can afford to keep a horse just for sport or pleasure. So few of us have any direct connection with either donkeys or horses. The older generation have memories of the milkman or the rag and bone man's horse drawn cart, or a donkey ride on a seaside beach but how many have had a close relationship with any of these animals. So why do we care so much about horses and donkeys? Why do we readily give to pay for the continued upkeep of someone else's discarded pet. We do not have homes for retired dairy cows, or pigs. Off to the slaughterhouse for them with not a thought from the rest of us yet the sight of a donkey has us reaching for the cheque book.
