My donkey Morris – who is an expert on equus asinus – will tell you that El Refugio del Burrito in Spain is a subsidiary of the original Sidmouth sanctuary founded by Elisabeth Svendsen over fifty years ago. She would be proud to see the work of the Refugio del Burrito in training professional vets to better understand these sensitive and intelligent animals that are quite different from horses.
After conducting a survey of 134 equine vets in Spain, the Refugio del Burrito found that 81% felt more comfortable treating horses than donkeys, and the vets claimed their university training left them with poor knowledge of specific donkey formation and practical experience of the animals. A particular problem is also the well-known “stoicism” of donkeys, who hide their symptoms of pain and discomfort. Morris donkey explains this stoic donkey trait: “It is an atavistic remnant of our time in the African savanna and the desert, where predators look for signs of weakness in their prey, so donkeys learned not to show their pain.”
Proyecto Platero: a Network of Professional Donkey Experts
So the donkey sanctuary launched this initiative of creating a Network of Professional Donkey Experts to share knowledge and experience, offering free training for vets and creating a directory of donkey specialists. This has included online courses and in-person training at the donkey sanctuary. The whole course of six modules took place over the past seven months in 2025, completed in the training weekend in late October in Badajoz. Link to the video about the course (Facebook page.)
Cristina Gené, our equine vet for Rubí, Matilde, Morris and Aitana completed the course. Regular blog visitors will have seen the photos of her dental work with my donkeys, Cristina is also vet for my Orxeta neighbours’ donkeys: Lola of Hilario, Bertie and Wooster of Yaz and Barry, and occasional vet for Bart and his donkeys (some owners only seek a vet when something goes wrong!)
Photo shows Cristina doing dental work with my donkey Rubí.
Support the Refugio del Burrito
All the training for equine vets carried out by the Refugio del Burrito needs to be paid for. You can contribute by following this link to their donations page: https://www.elrefugiodelburrito.org/ayudanos
We all need further training!
I will be travelling to Cordoba in three weeks to continue my Andalusian donkey-owner training! I am spending some time with the famous Pepe Selfa on his farm, learning about the recuperation of the Andalusian breed, which were in danger of extinction, but now the race has been boosted by conscious breeding programmes to save them.
I will be learning all about this from an expert in the field and doing some practical work on his farm with a glorious herd of pure-breds, the wider family of my pure-bred Andalusian donkey Matilde pictured here-
