As Kim Porter makes the morning rounds on her northeastern Massachusetts farm—checking in on the geese, horses and ponies—the special greeting from her burro, Nacho, entices the biggest grin, his squeaky little “hees” without the “haws.”

“He stands in the back of his stall,” Porter says, “and when he sees me, he walks towards me going, ‘Hee, hee, hee!’ ”

Once near, Nacho nuzzles her face or hand with his muzzle. And when she leads him to the paddock for breakfast, he turns his head inquisitively toward the place she keeps the peppermint candies—his favorite treat. “But he’s never demanding,” she says. “He just pauses and gazes toward [them]. He’s very polite.”

Nacho’s gentle spirit soothed Porter after cancer treatment and following the death of her mother last year. She loves the way he tosses his head and bucks a little after being put in the paddock for his breakfast, and the way he runs in the pasture with the horses and then grazes quietly beside them. “Whenever I’m with him, he makes me smile,” she says. “He’s just so sweet and kind.”