Goodbye dear Gideon

13 minutes ago

2 min read

We have had to say goodbye to our beautiful boy, Gideon.

Rescued, soaked through from heavy rain, back in January of 2020, he was a strong and robust donkey although a little malnourished. Since being in our care, he always stayed on the thin side even though he had a very good appetite, he always ate well and remained strong.

But over the past couple of months he seemed to be losing more weight and in the past few weeks we started noticing that he was becoming increasingly thin despite still eating very well.

Two different vets had been a number of times to check him and we had tried various different supplements for him but nothing helped. Then came the awful morning recently that we found him lying down, not wanting to get up at all and we knew immediately that he must really be feeling poorly as it was so unlike him, he was always so feisty.

We called for the vet to come to see him again and this time he said the kindest thing we could do for Gideon now, would be to let him go peacefully…. Through the stethoscope, he could hear that Gideon’s heart was failing to work properly. He thought it could possibly be congestive heart failure that had caused Gideon’s deterioration, but without having the funds to be able to do more extensive testing, such as an MRI etc, we just have no real way of knowing. It could even possibly have been cancer that had metastasised 😓🙏🏼

It was deeply heartbreaking to have to let that dear boy go as he’d always been such a strong character, though we knew in our hearts it was the right thing for him as he was suffering and there was nothing else we could have done to help him.

Rest in peace gorgeous Gideon, your memory will always be a blessing and we are so grateful that you were able to have the last 6 and half years of your life living safely at our sanctuary where you were so deeply loved.

Clockwise:

Newly rescued Gideon, soaked through from the heavy rain

Our beautiful Gideon

Gideon (lighter) and Shayne tucking into some food

Gideon at the end… enjoying his last little munch of grass