Girl’s best friend: Four-year-old finds comfort with a bull

Four-year-old Ainhoa suffers from Rett syndrome, a rare neurological condition that affects speech (most sufferers cannot speak) and neurological development. 

“It’s a neurological disease that affects development. Like a plug that’s not connected well into the socket. Sometimes it connects and sometimes it doesn’t,” Ainhoa’s mother explains in the video, filmed by Atlas News.

But there is one creature that helps Ainhoa forget all about her condition and enjoy the simple pleasures of life… her pet bull, Gandul.

She loves nothing more than petting the bull and even riding on his back, an unusual and heartwarming sight in a country where bulls are more often seen in the savage atmosphere of the bullring or as part of a bull run.

Ainhoa’s mother – a rancher – had the idea to introduce the two as a kind of “friendship therapy”.

“I can’t tell you what my daughter thinks because unfortunately she is unable to tell me but you can see that she is happy,” Ainhoa’s mother says in the video.

The little girl is so comfortable with the huge animal that she even falls asleep on its back as it walks through the fields.