On Saturday 4th August, Rocky and Zak accompanied us to the Silverton Street Market to help promote The Donkey Sanctuary. It is the first time either of them have ever been to such an event, but they both behaved themselves impeccably and were wonderful ambassadors for the Sanctuary!

Zak was chosen to attend as he was a Blackpool beach donkey before he came to live with us and therefore we thought he would love being back in the limelight again. And he did. He took everything in his stride and loved all of the attention showered on him.

Rocky was chosen as he is the sweetest little mule you could ever hope to meet and a perfect example of why mules are such wonderful animals! He is a firm favourite on during the Sanctuary's annual International Donkey Week where there is always a queue of supporters waiting to give him a big hug and take him out for a walk.

We were keen to take both a mule and a donkey to the event, to help educate people about the differences between them and to give mules some extra publicity. We feel that often mules are overlooked in this country and many people have unfair preconceptions about them, and this showed as on several occasions throughout the day the phrase ‘stubborn as a mule’ was uttered! This gave us a chance to explain why the phrase should really be ‘clever as a mule’.

Mules have the intelligence to outsmart people and this is often why they are labelled as stubborn. However when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, you will often find that the mule is just one step ahead of you, looking back and laughing!

Overall we felt that the day was a big success, as we got to talk about the dedicated work of the Sanctuary, as well as managing to talk about how lovely mules really are and hopefully changed some opinions on them. We would also like to thank everyone that left us a donation on the day. Every penny will be put to good use helping to look after donkeys and mules.

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