A couple of weeks after Jimmy arrived we had a desperate call from the friend of an elderly owner. The owner had gone completely blind after several years of problems and was no longer to look after her beloved donkey that she used for work.

The friend and a few other people had been looking after the donkey for her and asked if we could take him. Of course we said we would and off we went to collect him. The one proviso was that we named the donkey Demos after the owner’s husband – no problem.

Meet Jimmy! OK so he has his ears facing backwards, but despite taking lots of photos he would only pick them up after the camera clicked!! You’ve read many stories of very sad or even horrendous stories about donkeys we have collected, but this is quite a lovely story.

His elderly owners felt that at Jimmy’s age he too was getting a bit old for work (he is 25 – 30) and so they rang us to ask if we would take him. We did the usual checks and off we went to collect him.

On the 18th of January 2011, we had a phone call from a man asking us if we could go and pick up his father’s donkey. His father was very sick and in hospital facing many serious health problems. He was very worried about his father’s donkey as he couldn’t take care of it as he lived quite a distance away from the village, and there was no one else who could help.

Hope for Polina

Polina is over 25 years old and was a much loved donkey belonging to a very elderly owner. As with most working donkeys here, Polina was used for all sorts of jobs – carrying olives and vegetables, firewood and the like. Her owner was struggling to find a farrier to trim Polina’s hooves which was a big concern as her two front hooves are very misshapen. Her owner heard about us and felt that her donkey would receive the care and treatment needed if she sent Polina to us.

A young woman, who lives in the village of Agios Ioannis Agros, contacted us as she had heard that a donkey owner was going to shoot or abandon his donkey as he could no longer look after it. She told the owner about the sanctuary and he then rang us to ask if we would take the donkey. On 9th June 2010 we went to collect Markos. The owner didn’t really want to shoot or abandon Markos – it was just that he couldn’t afford or manage to look after him anymore and thought he had no other option.

The two donkeys that were kept at Limassol Zoo were known to us as our Welfare Officer popped in a few times each year to see how they were doing and if any help was needed. The Zoo contacted us in May 2010 to tell us that they were closing for a period of time and wanted to relinquish their two donkeys to us, so on 3rd June Limnatiti and Staktis joined us at Vouni.

Limnatiti means someone who comes from the vilaage of Limnia and Staktis means the colour of grey ash – a little strange as he is brown!

Lindy was purchased as a pet for the owner’s children. Unfortunately they were not interested so Lindy only had the sheep for company. Due to the recession her owner had found it difficult to feed his animals so he asked us if it was possible to take Lindy into the Sanctuary.

Lindy had lived in a paddock with 800 sheep for 12 years and was not handled very much. When we went to collect her she was loose in an area that was full of tins, sheets of metal, old timber and general rubbish.

Roberto’s owner thought the world of his donkey but due to financial problems, the owner had to find full time imployment in a town and had little time to look after him, so he asked his friend with a cow farm to take him in. The owner had not seen Roberto for some months when he accompanied us to farrier him.

I don’t know how it happened? I think my owner didn’t want me anymore because I had a bad leg. He used to hobble me to trees and the rope was so tight it dug into my leg and made it bleed. The wounds were not cleaned so they got infected and I can hardly walk now, it’s so painful.

In Cyprus we were experiencing a mild start to the winter, but it was a dull overcast day when we received a telephone call from an elderly farmer who lived in the village of Malia, Limassol District. He had a female donkey which he no longer required for work and was unable to feed through the winter so his only solution was to shoot her. He had been talking about his problem in the local coffee shop in the hope a villager may take the donkey, fortunately he was overheard by the Mukhtar who told the farmer about the Donkey Sanctuary at Vouni.