A haven for working animals in Morocco - October 11, 2009, was a warm Sunday evening in Marrakech, Morocco. The clatter and babble of the colourful markets was subsiding as bikes, buses, horse-drawn caleches and donkey carts made their way home. But one cart clattered on with an urgency of its own. It was heading for the veterinary clinic of the UK-headquartered Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA), which provides free veterinary care for working animals in some of the world’s poorest countries. On the cart was a distressed jenny donkey in the final stages of tetanus. She was rigid, recumbent, and barely breathing. And she was also in the final stages of pregnancy.

World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) Approves Standards during Assemble in Paris - Brooke USA, the fundraising arm of the world’s largest international equine welfare charity, the Brooke, has announced a huge milestone for Brooke’s global animal welfare and advocacy work. Brooke has been supporting the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in developing the standards over the past three years, providing expertise and technical input. 180 countries will commit to undertake the recommendations, which were approved on May 25, 2016 at the World Assembly of OIE Delegates in Paris, during which the OIE for the first time announced the set of welfare standards for working horses, donkey and mules.

A Veteran Looks At Life Through His Horse’s Ears - “I joined the PPCLI cadet corps at the age of 12 and soon realized that a career in the army was what I wanted to do,” says McEachern. “At 17 I enlisted in the reserves and did my first tour overseas as a peacekeeper in Croatia (former republic of Yugoslavia) with 1st Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. After the tour I transferred to the regular force with the same battalion I served with overseas. In 1995 I was sent to Central Africa with the Disaster Assistance Relief team as security for the medics, headquarters, etc.

Two thousand years ago in Bethlehem, a tiny donkey carried Mary to that famous Grotto now beneath the Church of the Nativity, and which provided sanctuary for Jesus’ birth. Today, just 76 kilometres away near the coastal town of Netanya in Israel, another sanctuary, Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land, provides protection and care for donkeys that have been abused, beaten, malnourished or injured.