Franky
Rescued: November 15, 2014

Early one autumn morning, a worried young woman rang to say she’d woken up to find a donkey in her garden and didn’t know what to do.

We were just horrified when we saw the state of Franky’s hooves. He’d clearly gone without proper hoof care for years, resulting in horribly overgrown feet and one of the worst deformities we’ve ever seen – his left front hoof was so turned over it was like he was walking on his ankle. What a terrible case of neglect. He must have been in such pain for so long.

Franky obviously needed major reconstructive surgery if he had any chance of survival. So after conferring with specialist veterinarian Gasper Castejins in Barcelona, Franky and Rod made the gruelling seven-hour journey north to Gasper’s Equihealth clinic.

In December 2014, Gasper and his team performed life-saving corrective surgery. We were amazed to see Franky up and walking happily about just a few short weeks after this major operation. What a tough little man.

Franky then stayed in Barcelona as a companion for Faith the amputee pony, until she passed away in October 2015.

We wanted to bring Franky immediately home, but it was another year before Rod had a chance to make the long drive back up to Barcelona to collect him. Equihealth kindly kept Franky there for us free of charge the whole time, for which we are very grateful.

In September 2016 we finally brought Franky home, where he quickly settled in with the rest of our donkey herd. Seeing his straight little leg and knowing how far his come, we can’t help but feel like his recovery is a little miracle.