On Thursday afternoon as it was such a lovely day, we took the rugs off our donkeys. Don’t know wether it was that or the spring sunshine but they spent the next 20 minutes hot hoofing it around their paddock. Bucking and cantering encouraging one another to take the lead. Biting each other’s ankles until they could stand no more and off they’d go again, quite often using me and my wheelbarrow as a marker to go around. From one end to the other doing flying changes ( where they naturally change their leading front leg around corners ) …. what a delight to see such happy, energetic, funny donkeys.
On the opposite side to that, I went out to feed them at the usual time and Little Lad was laid down outside his stable. Normally they would be up and about knowing food was soon on its way. However he stayed down. I placed my bucket of goodies out of site and slowly entered into his space. He didn’t move. I got down on the straw and got to within touching distance and just sat there quietly with him. George came over had a good sniff and nuzzle ( don’t think he could work out what I was doing on the floor ). I stayed there very quietly and Little Lad kept closing his eyes and nodding his head. It could have been he was tired from his racing around earlier, but I like to think they we shared a moment of complete and utter trust. I have studied the Trust technique, a mindfulness approach for Equines. Louis our cat who is always around when we are out with the donkeys slowly made his way over to me and sat with the two of us. I had 3 amazing animals with me, two laid down and the other just munching on some straw and licking his salt block. We were like this for 15 minutes or more. I didn’t have my camera with me, but then maybe that would have disrupted things anyway. It was a Profound moment. I feel extremely privileged to experience the things I do with such amazing animals. 
dnkys 