This week is a very special week here at the Donkey Sanctuary - it's Donkey Week! Many of the departments here at the Sanctuary have been putting together talks and presentations to tell the donkey weekers a bit about what we do. When I was asked to give a talk I was delighted, I'm always very happy to talk about the work that we do to improve our knowledge of donkeys and mules in sickness and in health.

Unfortunately we are carrying out so many projects at the moment all of which I'm passionate about that I couldn't fit all of this in to 45 minutes! After racking my brains I thought we'd only talk about some of the projects but as I found it impossible to choose we decided on a lucky dip approach. I asked my assistants to come up with some cryptic questions all of which have been answered by our projects over the last 12 months. The donkey weekers kindly picked out some of the toughest questions, they included "what does cardboard have to do with colic?", "what does Sat-Nav have to do with donkeys?" and "what's a donkey's favourite perfume?".

I was assisted by my favourite donkey Huwi, he very patiently allowed me to use him to help explain some of our behavioural projects and was so well behaved that the audience were much more interested in watching him than me I'm sure!

Sadly after 45 minutes it was all over but it was then really nice to chat to some of the donkey weekers about all things donkey - a subject I never tire of!

Our projects are all non-intrusive and aim to improve the welfare of donkeys and mules worldwide. Projects are designed to provide the science behind decisions that we take when managing our donkeys and when advising donkey owners worldwide on the best way to work with their animals. If you would like to learn more about the projects that we are carrying out and the information that we have published please see the 'Veterinary Projects' section of our website.