Look for all your friends Tierra over the Rainbow Bridge

Wednesday afternoon we received the sad news that Tierra, one of our older resident donkeys, was put to sleep after being taken ill. Despite all efforts by our vets to save Tierra, and however much we love our animals, letting go is never easy and leaves us full of sadness when we lose old donkey friends.

Tierra was one of our tall Andalucian donkeys who lived at Shelter 4. She came into our care in 2003 and had a wonderful life here at the Sanctuary. Tierra had been part of our show team, training centre and events team during her life and was a wonderful ambassador for the Sanctuary. She was a great character and will be sadly missed by us all.

Annie Brown, our general farm manager, said "I remember being at a New Forest Show several years ago with her and two of the Poitou donkeys and it was a very hot week so we had to throw buckets of water over all three animals to keep them cool. She loved it and all the visitors to the show loved watching us all getting wet!"

The photo above is one of the last photos we took of Tierra during our recent Bray & Stay event as she looked over the fence towards her donkey friends walking towards Shelter 4.

Annie kindly provided this photo on the right of Tierra with her old donkey friends Seamus and DeDe which was taken in 2005.

Look for all your friends Tierra over the Rainbow Bridge who will be there waiting to welcome you.