Little Donkey Blown Up - How Can People Do This?

I am in shock, mum has told me what has happened to a little donkey in Afghanistan - now that is somewhere I do not want to go on holiday if this is how they treat my friends.


"The Afghan army platoon has received some information that the insurgents were going to try to strap an improvised explosive device to a donkey and send it towards camp. Donkeys do not have the reputation of being the most pliant animal so it was treated with some scepticism at first.

Then in the afternoon the gate guard realised that there was something suspicious going on. A group had just let go of a donkey a short way from camp and hurried off. He tried to divert the animal with flares and other warnings. Obstinacy not being the best quality in that situation, the beast of burden eventually had to be stopped by a rifle shot.

The team went out and established there was something very suspicious under the bundle of hay carried by the donkey. Eventually one brave A&A warrior set fire to the hay with a flare from a distance and 30 seconds later there was a considerable explosion.

No one was hurt, swift appropriate actoin had saved them from an unusual attack but it is impossible to report a donkey IED up the chain of commant without a rye small at the ridiculousness of it or a feeling that the world is slightly off its axis."

The world has gone totally bonkers using an innocent donkey as a bomb, I am crying in my cornflakes. This just confirms that I am one of the luckiest donkeys in the world, mum says no one is getting near me with TNT.

It's Xmas Card Time

As a very very busy and innovative donkey, I am selling Xmas Cards this year - being generous I have let Aimee have the front page slot, but if you want any cards, for your discerning friends, they are printed up on nice gold glitter paper and cost £0.70p each - all proceeds and I mean ALL going to help save another donkey from slaughter.

This is how beautiful Aimee is on the card - get in fast and buy up our stock! I am on the back of the card looking suitably festive.

Bon Voyage and Send Me a Postcard

Mum says that these poor little fellows are being loaded onto the bad lorries, the ones that take them to either Italy (for the salami trade) or to a local killing place.

I wish I could be there to warn them, don't go in, jump the fence, run like stink. But I'm not, so they don't. If only I was Vodka Superdonkey I would swoop down there with my cloak flapping and scoop them all up and keep them safe. But I am only a very young but large brown French donkey who, while clever and smart, can't solve all the bad things that happen in the world. I am leaving that to Mr Obama - maybe he could do a flying visit to the butchers fairs and declare them unconstitutional or something. Equines don't like this idea of special rendition, we would prefer to stay at home please.

As an innocent young donkey, if I'd been there, would I have known that jumping ship now was a very good idea. Tunnel while you can, become a puissance donkey capable of jumping any fence and literally running for my life. Thankfully, though this was my destiny, I dodged it.

If fate hadn't intervened and given me that huge lucky break, what would I have done, gone on the lorry or had a tantrum. I suspect, that given how cowed, submissive and frightened I was, I would have gone one. I guess the brave Cazaux, my erstwhile companion, might have put up a bit of a fight, but being a gentleman, if I'd gone in I'm sure he would have too, just to look after me. I wouldn't have known any better. And anyway I wouldn't have been given much choice, as if you don't go, they beat you. So eventually you follow the others. And that's it, trapped.

This is the last time you will see the sky, taste grass, have a drink of water, enjoy a stretch, have a snooze. However long your journey, you probably won't be fed, or given any rest or water, you will just trundle on all through France, heading south to the barbaric country that is Italy.

Mum says it's a shame that such a cultured nation can have such peculiar habits, which extend to killing foals, killing pregnant mares. At least the French draw the line at that, you have to have the baby before they kill you.

The last thing you see at the market is sticks waving, folks shouting, and that's pretty much what you are going to see at the end of your final journey.

Bon voyage.

Death's Waiting Room for Horses

This is death row, this is the poor little meat horses who have been sold to the butcher - this could have been Vodka donkey, been weighed, price paid for me, ready to go on the lorry on my final journey.

Mum says it is so painful to see these pictures, all the poor innocent young horses, all dead now, hanging up in a Boucherie Chevaline by now. Most of them never had names, never knew much kindness in their short brutish lives - and they died a pretty nasty death.

She says that whenever I am a bad donkey, I should remember these pictures and appreciate what a lucky girl I am. This was my destiny and I evaded it.

I am concerned that it may still be lurking behind a bush, waiting to catch up with me, but mum says destiny doesn't tend to work that way. It wasn't my destiny to go for the chop, or be made into chops.

I am so relieved, it makes me very ashamed that this morning I attacked Ferguson, tried to pull his rug off, hung from his neck, bit his short stumpy legs, then chased him around in circles - he would never admit it but he loves it really. When he has had enough he boots me fair and square and I give up.

These poor little ponies won't get to play any more. I shall have to think of ways to save some of them.

The Poor Mother Horses And Their Babies

Mum says when she looks at this picture of the mares and foals at the butchers sale, she can't stop crying.

The total waste of breeding a nice little foal, and then to send the foal and its mum to be killed - and the anguish of the little mare, trying to protect her baby, but she can't.

She will be driven onto a lorry with all the other horses, all in together, with her baby, with all these strange horses she doesn't know. They may attack her, or her baby and there is nothing she can do about it.

The last thing she will see is either her baby being killed right in front of her, or she will be killed first if she tries to fight to protect it too much.

Mum says that countries in Europe were at the heart of civilisation centuries ago, but that they seem to be slipping back to the dark ages in terms of their cruelty and callousness to gentle horses.

Have to say I agree with her totally, and I am only an ass.

The Poor Baby Horses

Mum has showed me this picture of the baby horses, at the butchers' fair in October, all penned up,ready to go to their deaths.

They look nice little foalies, charming, sweet, nice natured - probably scared out of their minds in this strange place, with all the noise, people prodding and poking them (to see how heavy they are), sticks waving to make them move.

The sad thing is, these little chunky babies make exactly the sort of riding ponies that people want, 14-15 hands high, built to carry weight, suitable for a child or adult, calm temperament, easy to learn, just what the doctor ordered. But they won't get the chance to show how they could have won rosettes, got their clever horse diploma. They are considered worthless, other than for the value of the meat on their bones.

As they are all unused to people, and unhandled, it makes it all the more scary for them. What they don't know is that they have very little time left to live, they are going either to the local butcher, or off on a ride to Italy.

Either way, it isn't a good future. However brief.

My Second Anniversary

In October 2007, I arrived in France. I didn't know it at the time but this is a very very dangerous time to be in France if you are an equine, or even a donk.

This is the time that all the lazy people who don't want to pay for their horses over winter, having used them all summer, throw them away. Riding schools, tourist attractions, carriage horses from the major tourist cities, petting zoos, petting farms, anywhere a horse can be useful, and has done a summer's work, well this is the thanks they get.

They get sent for slaughter. There are big markets, where thousands of horses ponies and donkeys are penned up, and the butcher comes round and buys them.

Being an innocent donkey, I had no idea that the timing of my arrival in France could be so tragic. Mum says she has now seen some pictures of these fairs, and it breaks here heart to think of me there, all alone, or with my mum, or maybe with my old mate Cazaux. Bless his little cotton socks.

Like me, he was lucky. We didn't go to the butchers fairs, but we did have a pretty miserable winter, out in the fields, fighting for food, we got cold and thin, we got lice, we got long feet. But we didn't die. So we were lucky.

I cannot stop crying when I see all these poor creatures just waiting to go on the death lorries. I know that they haven't been saved, as the ones in these pictures are now dead. A few might have been bought by kind people who wanted to save them, but there just aren't enough of these people around.