Patience and perseverence

It can be heart breaking to see an animal so terrified of human contact that it will put its own life at risk to get away from humans. This was the case with a young stallion called Yiannis. Although only five years old, he had only ever been given water and enough poor quality food to survive. Living in a small corral with loose wire, sharp nails and metal stakes poking out everywhere, he'd never experienced any form of kindness. As a result, not only was he incredibly frightened of humans, but his behaviour scared the people that went near him. When we met Yiannis he tried to push his way through the 'fencing' and was in grave danger of seriously injuring himself, or worse, and we knew we had to act. Fortunately we were able to bring him to safety and slowly but gently work on his confidence. After several months he began to become calmer and inquisitive, his overall health improved and his trust in humans was developing. We've now been able to castrate him and, although still a little wary, there is still work to do to further gain his trust. We found his 'scratch spot' just behind his left ear, and so whenever he does something good he gets a reward from a good scratch! Perhaps the old saying 'softly, softly catchy monkey' should be changed to donkey?!