The Donkey Sanctuary, Cork

Anyone who really knows me, knows I have an incredible soft spot for animals of all kinds. I often dreamt of working in a zoo - and still do! I actually have to suppress my mad passion for them as I think people might find me a little mad - but there you have it - I'm just a bit mad over animals.

Sophia with a wee little baby at the sanctuary - so soft and fuzzy.
Their welfare is very important to me and if I had more land and more space, I'd love to set up some kind of animal rescue or fostering program. As one might expect, animals are suffering even more in the recession - if humans are, you can only imagine where animals fall in order of preference - unfortunately, they too often become expendable and not worthy of care and there have been extreme cases of neglect not only of donkeys but horses, dogs, cats etc.

Ever since moving to Ireland three years ago I'd heard about the Donkey Sanctuary in Cork and finally a few weekends ago, Sophia and I decided to head down there on a Saturday afternoon. From Nenagh, it took us just over and hour - it is near Charleville and Mallow in Liscarroll so a pretty easy ride.

Surprisingly there is no entrance fee and we were greeted by a few donkeys in the open enclosure - donkeys are extremely friendly and need human contact.

They all have big collars around their necks with their names on them - this white one seemed to have ears that were permanently back and although he looked cross - was not.

Further out are big paddocks with more donkeys and you can take a lovely walk up a hill with fantastic views of the surrounding countryside - there are benches along the route and certainly worth bringing along a picnic on a fine day.

Sophia did have a little biting encounter (although not with this one) but I successfully pried it's teeth off her fingers and she survived! But just look at these sweet faces.

The fuzziest face of all!

There is a tiny but really good gift shop where you can buy all kinds of really nice donkey paraphernalia - you can also adopt a donkey for a year for only €20. You can choose from 5 different donkeys and the money goes to keeping all the donkeys fed throughout the year. Sophia choose to adopt Richie - you get a lovely bag with his photo on it and and certificate of adoption plus information about his history.

Do make the trip to the sanctuary - the donkeys are sweet and it will do your heart some good to know you've given back to them in some way - the sanctuary has over 1000 donkeys in it's care at this stage - not all right there but all in their care. They need our help.