I ♥ Donkeys

I love donkeys! I've been spending more time with these sweet girls the past couple of days, working towards getting them halter broke so they will be trained if/when they get re-homed. Now that I've worked with them a little bit, I've started getting a better idea of each of their personalities.

Twiggy
She's the lighter colored donkey you see standing straight towards the camera in that picture. I guess you could say that Twiggy is our boldest donkey. Nothing you introduce really fazes her -- and other donkeys beware, if Twiggy wants something, it's hers! So far, I've been able to pet Twiggy all over, give her hugs and kisses, halter her, and flap a rope all over her body. Wild burro? What? Where?

Oprah
Ms. Oprah was our second-most outgoing donkey when I first started working with these guys. She's the donkey standing on the far left side of the photo. When I haltered Oprah today, I realized how much smaller her head is than Twiggy's. It's crazy! One other important thing about Oprah: as the weeks go by, she's starting to look rounder and rounder... I think there is little doubt that this sweetheart is pregnant!

Gertrude (Gertie)
You can't really see Gertie in the picture. She's the only donkey not looking at the camera - tsk tsk! Gertie has come a long way since we first started training the donkeys. She was pretty timid at first, but now loves to come up for scratches. She's the pickiest of the donkeys when it comes to food. Smart Gertie loves grain. When we get new wild mustangs, they often don't know to eat grain, and will even spit it out if you give some to them by accident mixed in with their hay (OK lets be honest, you probably hid it there on purpose)... The donkeys don't seem to really have this issue, and Gertie will only take the hay from you if there's grain in that bite too -- but luckily she'll work for scratches no matter what. Gertie is the last donkey who I've been able to halter, and I've flapped the rope all over her body without any drama too.

Whoopi
Finally there's Whoopi. She's the bigger girl standing in the front right side of the photo. Whoopi is our most timid donkey, and I was having terrible luck being able to get her engaged in the training sessions with the three other pushy ones out-competing her. This morning though, Pat was out there with me and when we each had 2 donkeys to pet, Pat was able to get Whoopi to enjoy scratches on her neck! In the afternoon, I went back out specifically to work with Whoopi, and she's definitely making progress. At first, she would only let me stand on her right side (meaning she is a right-biased donkey), but I could reach over her back and scratch her left side. By the end of the session I was able to stand on either side and scratch her neck/body, but whenever I moved to a new spot she would get uncomfortable again. I'm certain we'll continue making steady progress, but it just won't be quite as speedy as her 3 penmates.


Mustang Update
It's been a while since I said anything about the progress we've been making with the mustangs. I've been focusing on the mares (Ginger, Greta, and June). All three are making fantastic progress.

• Greta has long outgrown her fear-chomping, and we've been working on getting her haltered and getting her used to human touch/petting.
• Ginger had a phase where she tried out different things to see if she could gain access to the food in my treat bag more quickly than I was giving it to her... She had to learn pretty quick that the only way she could get the food was by doing what I asked, not by being pushy. That made me leave and not come back -- not so ideal for a horse that wants to do just about anything to get you to hand them some food (even food on the ground isn't good enough!). I've also started feeding her an early afternoon snack, so she doesn't get super hungry and feel the need to be pushy for her food. Now that we've implemented changes for a couple days, Ginger is more polite, and we're back on track. She's also learned that humans are a great source of scratches. Watching a fresh mustang's lip wiggle in pleasure as you scratch them is a pretty fantastic experience!
• June is doing great. She was slow to start but now she's all caught up with Ginger! Well on her way to being a wonderful horse for somebody.

Ms. Ginger has a bad hair day.
I messed up her forelock scratching her face :)