Minty Monty
Rescued: October 2, 2016

Early one Sunday morning, we were called out by Los Montosinos police to rescue a donkey found wandering near a road – right before our monthly public open day, no less. The joys of being on call 24 hours a day!

We immediately noticed this donkey was quite lame on his right foot. Our farrier soon found a nasty hoof abscess, which had likely been giving him grief for quite awhile. Luckily, it cleared up very quickly with proper treatment.

We nicknamed this donkey Minty because he loves Minty horse treats, they’re his absolute favourite thing. We later held a competition to officially name him and Monty was drawn out of the hat. So Minty Monty he became.

Minty was quite a handful when he arrived but quickly calmed down after being castrated and is now the nicest, friendliest, gentlest little donkey you could imagine.

It took him several months to settle into our fields and we suspect that, as a stallion, Minty was boxed alone in a closed stall for his whole life and never learned how to cope outside. Here in Spain, stallions are often shut away alone in filthy places. It really is a horrendous life for them.

After castration, we introduced Minty to our donkey field but he was a bit of a victim and didn’t seem to know how to fit in. The other donkeys were bullying poor Minty, so brought him back into our stable yard and he picked his own stable – the closed in box that looks out over a wall, without a view down the pathway to his neighbours. He seemed to like his privacy and was scared of the other horses and donkeys.

Eventually, we put him out with Akim and Bronte, two huge horses that hate their own kind but somehow love donkeys.

Minty also shares the field with Franky the donkey, a very kind and gentle soul who is gradually teaching Minty how to be a donkey again. It truly is a heartwarming transition to witness.