Nicki Grint is a veterinary surgeon who specializes in anesthesia and pain management. She also has a soft spot for donkeys, and is delighted to be able to combine these two passions when she embarks on a three year PhD at the University of Bristol to investigate how donkeys signal that they are in pain and how pain killing drugs (analgesics) can be best used to help them.
Donkeys are naturally very stoical creatures, reportedly showing very few signs of pain, even when they are suffering from conditions that we assume must be painful.
Owners of both donkeys and horses are aware of the big difference in pain behavior shown by these two closely related species. The seemingly stoical nature of donkeys could be because they have higher pain thresholds than horses and ponies, or it could simply be that vets are poor at recognizing their subtle signs of pain.
A key component of Nicki's studies will be to try and understand why the differences in pain behaviour occur in horses/ponies versus donkeys. Her first study is a questionnaire based project, and this is where she is hoping that the members of the Donkey Breed Society can help.
Nicki says "We are looking to learn from donkey owners about their experiences of the signs of pain seen in donkeys. There is a questionnaire (accompanying this newsletter) for donkey owners to complete.
We really hope that owners will be able to find the time to fill in this questionnaire because they spend a large amount of time caring for their animals and should be better able to pick up subtle signs of pain than vets who only see a snap-shot of the animals' behaviour."
This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to a research programme which should have significant benefits for donkeys, leading to much better pain relief than is currently possible.
The study will also include a questionnaire for vets to ask which pain relieving drugs they are currently prescribing for their donkey patients. This will be pivotal in shaping the rest of Nicki's research as it will guide future studies, making sure that the most commonly used pain killers are investigated.
It would be appreciated if donkey owners visiting the site could fill out the owners' portion and pass a copy of the veterinary questionnaire to their veterinary surgeon for completion during October and November. This is available as a download here on the Donkey Breed Society web site
http://www.donkeybreedsociety.co.uk
or you can email donkey-phd@bris.ac.uk for a copy.