Late last night 16 donkeys and 5 mules arrived at The Donkey Sanctuary’s main Italian rescue centre at Sala Biellese, near Turin. The donkeys were recently rescued from appalling conditions by the charity, from an Italian equine trader in Colleferro, Italy.

Staff were shocked when they found 104 animals without food or shelter. Many rescued donkeys were significantly underweight, with severely overgrown hooves. For some animals it was too late.

It was but a few days ago we went to a neighbouring village called Villanueva de Algaidas. to rescue a mule whose owner was very ill and could no longer take care of her.

The mule's name was Pequeña (little one in Spanish), even when she is a large, respectable lady of 32.

When we arrived where she was, we found a little stray dog beside her; he was undernourished and had no collar or any other identification.

Unfortunately, we keep hearing expressions like credit crunch, financial crisis and so on, reading about their terrible consequences, and we are very well aware of how hard times are for all kinds of families, animal or human. The following case, sadly, is no exception. This crisis is an unavoidable reality, at least for the time being. Stories such as Portugués’ and his owner are an evidence.

Portugués had a harsh, unrewarding life, like that of so many other unfortunate donkeys. He barely survived with his old owner, a man who claimed he cared for him, but had very little to show for it. He had used Portugués until he was no longer fit for work and lately, he merely made him spend his days tied up, with little food, a set of deformed hooves caused by negligence and his body covered in scabs as a result of allergic reactions to insect bites. Then, a young woman noticed his plight and decided to come to the rescue.

Our latest rescue has nothing nice or tender about it. It is simply one of those stories we would choose not to tell, one of those stories no words can make softer, because they emanate sheer pain.

Nolvi was a very unlucky donkey, a forgotten princess. She belonged to some gypsies who worked in the meat trade business. We do not know much about her life with them, but taking a look at her, one can tell it was not an easy life.

Meet Terrance our latest rescue. He is a young, strong and determined donkey that was found abandoned near Los Barrios in the province of Cádiz. It was at the dog pound of this municipality, that he has been taken care of, until we have been able to rescue him.

His carers assure us that he seemed a really placid donkey at first... Bit by bit, his true, determined nature started to show, and he became the leader of the pack at the pound!

This is a love story; one of those love stories with a bittersweet ending we often hear about. But never mind how often you do hear them, they make your heart soften each and every time. Once upon a time, there was a man, a man and his beloved mule.

Navarra is her name; chestnut and ginger and brown and striped is she. A beautiful mule.

As you can see the number of donkeys at El Refugio keeps increasing.

Our latest rescue is Platera. She arrived not ten minutes ago from the neighbouring village of Humilladero.

Platera lived with her loving owners who had no other choice but to move to a different part of the country, and could not take her with them. That was the reason why they relinquished her to us.

We are glad to introduce you to Nila, the latest member of our great donkey family!

If there is something characteristic about a donkey's physionomy that's its ears; Nila can't deny she's a donkey through and through... She has the biggest ears! And we love it!

She comes from the province of Cádiz, where she was well taken care of by her owners. It was them who decided to bring her over, because she has laminitis and they wanted her to have the best possible care. Her laminitis is not very serious and we will make avery possible effort so she gets a lot better.

It seems there are still many places in Spain that, unfortunately, still use animals for what they call "entertainment". We certainly see nothing entertaining in these events.

In this particular case, it is in Vitoria, a city that is supposed to be "Green Capital City of Europe in 2012", a race is celebrated in July, where donkeys are forced to participate, leaving us dreadful images like the one we share here. Donkeys are pulled, forced to run... regardless of their welfare. It is shameful to say the least, that a city of this importance will still allow for these things to happen, as we are not talking about some obscure little village with ancient "traditions".

A few days ago, via facebook, we received a complaint from one of our Spanish supporters in Becerrea, in the province of Lugo. There were 5 donkeys in the village in a state of complete neglect, with no water and infested with flies. One of them had been agonizing for days, with open wounds in really bad condition. If all this weren't enough, the animals were suffering zoophile as well.

El Refugio del Burrito acted immediately to see if the situation could be stopped. Unfortunately, we are very limited to what we can do, as we have no legal authority to just take the animals from there. We discovered the deonkeys were old, and had been left in the care of a man, once they were no good for work. But he didn't care for them at all. It is not the first time this happens, as we have found out this man has been sued repeatedly for animal mistreatment.