Over the years the Donkey Sanctuary has paid particular attention to maintaining strong relationships with other Irish animal welfare organisations. We have found that this is essential in order to achieve high standards of donkey welfare and to that end we love to share our expertise with others.

So on Thursday June 18th it was a great honour to play host to a group of ISPCA representatives, who travelled to our farms in Liscarroll to attend a course run by our expert donkey trainer Ben Hart.

This course is tailor made for animal welfare groups who like us continually strive to learn more and more about the positive approach to donkey care and welfare. Amongst many other things Ben highlighted the importance of body language, how to identify the reasons behind particular behaviour and how to plan a better approach style in difficult cases.

We had a good distribution of inspectors and representatives – and we thank them all for coming to meet us.

Lisa O'Donovan Inspector in the Cork area; Faie Richardson and Julie Waters from Mallow’s Victor Dowling Centre; Noel Shinnors and Mike Madden Inspectors and Finola Barriscale Kelly Assistant Secretary with Limerick SPCA, Pat Edwards of Waterford SPCA and a very healthy contingent from the National Animal Centre in Longford - Elaine Reynolds, Cathy Griffin, Karen Lyons, Kelley Hynes and Treasa Tallon.

Enjoyed by all – this was quite a sociable day interspersed with plenty food for thought!