Brushing and combing is only partly about grooming. The donkeys are always poking their noses and heads around, in tall grass, undergrowth and bushes, always getting burrs, scrapes, dirt stuck to their hides. But grooming is really about intimacy and connection, it is a way of speaking to animals, and listening to them. They love to be groomed, they seem to need the attention, through it we speak to them and tell them we love them and ask them to trust us and through grooming, they learn to do that. In the morning, they always present themselves for grooming and this is when I listen to them talk to us and how I learn to listen to them.