Bobby
Rescued: November 4, 2017

Poor little Bobby had been abandoned without any food or water along a canal in San Javier, Murcia. We received information about this donkey from a concerned member of the public, who wanted to buy the donkey to save him, then bring him to our centre.

We immediately explained that buying a neglected or abused animal does nothing to improve animal welfare in Spain, as unscrupulous owners may start to believe they can make money out of equine mistreatment.

We instead encouraged this person to make an official report to the police. Thankfully, San Javier police promptly responded – on a Saturday, no less. They seized the donkey and called Rod out to the scene.

We are delighted to work with the police in this way – we believe that, with our extremely limited funding and space, this is the only way we can make meaningful change here in Spain. And it is change – when we first started our centre in 2008, police would often simply ignore such cases.

Bobby was only about four years old when rescued, and came to us as an entire stallion, as so many of them do. We soon arranged for him to be castrated so he could be turned out with our other donkeys and finally enjoy a life of companionship.

He was rather underweight, too, but apparently not as bad as he could have been – we’re told several English people were helping feed him, so we were relieved to see he was not in too bad a state.

We gave the naming honours for this little donkey to our wonderfully hard-working staff. Victor and Raul promptly decided Bobby was the perfect name for this little guy. Of course, we agreed!

Finally, in January 2018, we could turn Bobby out for the first time. In fact, it was probably the very first time in his life that he’d ever been completely free range in a large space, as stallions are often shut away or hobbled on their own.

It’s the start of a new life for this kind little donkey!