Some of you may have read one of our previous blogs about a donkey called Spider. For those of you that haven’t, the story started in 1979 when a four month old foal called Spider came into the life of the late Dr Elisabeth Svendsen.
She wrote about him in a book called In Defence of Donkeys and this is how Spider's tale began:
The Spring Fair at our donkey assisted therapy centre in Eccup, Leeds took place on Saturday 13th April. The sun shone and our supporters came along and helped us to raise lots of money. The children played on Jar bola, Bottleoba as well as tried their luck with the traditional tombola and having a got at a "Name the Bear" competition.
At 5am on Tuesday 12th March 2013, Ellie gave birth to a lovely fillie foal called Dorothy. I was lucky enough to film the new foal taking her first few steps in the Sanctuary’s isolation unit, as well as her first steps outdoors, where she frolicked around the field having a lovely time.
The role of running one of the Sanctuary’s donkey assisted therapy centres is amazing, not one day is ever the same, you never know who is going to walk through the entrance doors. The children literally do come in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of disabilities and additional needs.
Sunday 7th April saw the return of our popular Family Fun Day and what a day it was! Building on last year’s event, the day was action packed throughout, with plenty for visitors to see and do. Despite the cold wind, the weather stayed dry and hundreds of people enjoyed a fun filled day of activities in and around the Slade Centre.
On my return from Italy, I stepped straight in to my new job role as the administrator for the Events and Activities team. It was a manic week to start as it was slap-bang in the middle of the Easter holidays; however it was great for me to be able to see firsthand the events that we hold during holidays at the Sanctuary.
