Education for the owners
Luckily most horses and donkeys only need to stay for a short period to get better. When the owner comes to pick up his animal, the vet tells the owner how to take care of the animal and how to prevent it from getting sick again. The vet tells the owner also that he - if the horse or donkey gets worse - must come to the hospital immediately. Most owners do this and it is good to know that in the animal hospitals from Brooke Hospital for Animals every year 500.000 animals are treated (and the owners educated) for free.

Donations
Brooke Hospital for Animals is able to do all this great work thanks to money from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Brooke's head office exists since 1934 and it is established in London (UK); in 1994 another office of Brooke Hospital for Animals was established in the Netherlands. At the moment there are more then 40.000 English donors and more then 20.000 Dutch donors.

Horses and donkeys in the Netherlands and horses and donkeys in the Third World
In the Netherlands horses are (in general) used for riding. This used to be different: in the beginning of the 1900's there were no cars in the streets, but carriages, horse and cart.
This is what it is like in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and India. These are poor countries and cars are expensive, horses pull the carriages that transport people and horses and donkeys have to pull carts with heavy loads like building materials. Horses and donkeys are seen as a kind of a 'motor' to do the heavy work, like we see our cars. In these countries it is usually very hot, sometimes over 50 degrees and we cannot cope with that, but the horses and donkeys have a problem with it also.

How did it all start?
In World War I (1914 - 1918), the British army was present in Egypt. In the beginning of this war about 20.000 horses and donkeys from the United Kingdom were brought ashore. When the war ended in 1918 the horses and donkeys were sold to Egyptian people so the poor animals were left there.

An English lady, Dorothy Brooke (see picture), came to Egypt about 15 years later because she wanted to know what happened to the war horses. When she saw them she got a shock, because the animals looked terrible. They had open wounds and were terribly skinny, the horses were exhausted and more dead then alive.

Sad and angry, Dorothy wrote a letter to an English newspaper, with a picture of one of the war horses. Her letter was printed in the newspaper and everyone in the United Kingdom was able to read what she wrote. Dorothy asked the people to send money, because she wanted to buy the horses and donkeys that were still alive.

Thousands of people gave money to Dorothy, because the letter and the picture were a big shock to them. With this money Dorothy Brooke was able to build the first Brooke Hospital for Animals in the capital of Egypt, Caïro, in the year 1934.

Dorothy Brooke bought the old war horses and donkeys in all of Egypt. A lot of them had died, but from the 20.000 Dorothy was able to buy 5000. Most of these horses had such a bad condition and were in so much pain that Dorothy had to decide to put them down. But... Dorothy gave these loyal animals another week of love, rest, good food and fresh water in the hospital; after that week they could die in peace. Dorothy wanted just one week of happiness for these poor animals. A couple of old war horses were old, but not sick or wounded. These horses stayed in the stables and the land from the first Brooke Hospital for animals till they died from natural causes.

Of course the Brooke Hospital for old war horses wasn't closed when the last horse had died. Dorothy saw that not only the old war horses had a terrible life, but almost all the horses and donkeys in Egypt were treated bad by their owners. The Brooke Hospital for Animals became an animal hospital where all animals from Caïro, Egypt, got FREE treatments by very good vets.

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