The greatest gift: showing love to horses and being loved in return

If horses, ponies and donkeys are shown love, they will love in return.

This is the message from this year’s short Christmas animation released by Brooke Action for Working Horses and Donkeys.

The film, titled The Greatest Gift, features the Dinky Donkey character who starred in the charity’s 2021 animation The Little Christmas Helper, joined by two equine friends, Harry the horse and Molly the mule.

It shows the three equids as Christmas tree ornaments, thrown to the floor when the festivities are over. One is put in a bin, another swept into a corner and the third thrown in a drawer.

But a child picks them up, mends them and puts them in pride of place on the windowsill, where the seasons change behind them and Christmas approaches again. Then the horse, donkey and mule repay the child’s kindness.

“To love an animal and feel loved in return can mean the world to us,” says Dragons’ Den star and Brooke supporter Deborah Meaden in a voiceover. “This Christmas, help Brooke heal broken bodies and broken hearts.”

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A spokesman for the charity said the aim of the video is to “highlight the importance of the relationship we have with animals, and how building strong bonds help heal the bodies and hearts of working horses and donkeys around the world”.

Deborah, who visited one of Brooke’s projects in India in 2013, added: “I was very pleased to support Brooke again in recording a voiceover for this Christmas animation.

“As a horse owner myself, I think the bond we have with our animals, and the understanding that gives us of their needs, is incredibly important. Frequent climate-related shocks, like the floods we saw in Pakistan this year, showed us that working horses, donkeys and mules need our help more than ever before.”

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