Six months after Dr. Evelyn Seiden Ivey and Thomas Joseph Rotelli Jr. began dating, Rotelli surprised her with two newborn miniature donkeys for her birthday. When the couple went to pick them up from a breeder in California’s Sierra Foothills, Ivey watched as a group of the animals surrounded Rotelli in the pasture.

The breeder noticed it, too.

“She said, ‘You keep that man. Donkeys are an excellent judge of character,’” Ivey recalled.

Donkeys aren’t the only creatures drawn to Rotelli, 60. “Whenever there are horses, they come up to Tom and want to nuzzle him,” Ivey said. “My dogs adore him. He’s just such a gentle person.”

As a veterinarian, Ivey, 56, said she finds it hard to imagine being with a partner who doesn’t connect with animals. They’re central to her life, and inextricable from her identity.

Rotelli and Ivey, who were both divorced, were introduced by a mutual friend in the summer of 2021. Before their first date in October of that year, they spent months getting acquainted through text messages and emails that covered, among other topics, their histories with pets.

Rotelli, a teacher and life coach, told her about his son’s yellow Labrador retriever, an expert swimmer, and learned Ivey had lived with lizards and snakes. They exchanged photos of their fish tanks — “Evelyn’s was a work of art,” he said.