Lynn and Linda are going out on training runs, sometime with donkeys sometimes just people. Lynn has a big race up at Black Canyon coming up this week-end, it's a people race 100k, which is 62 miles. Better him than me, only if someone was chasing me with a great big knife would I run and it certainly wouldn't be that far.....!!! Ha!
Most of the time they run with donkeys, last week it seems like they went out almost every day. Missy was a pretty little girl visiting here to get some racing practice. Here she is on the left out on a practice run. While she was here she ran a total of 43 miles on different trails and roads.
When her mom came to take her home, she showed us what Missy can do. None of us have ever driven a cart, which means Missy knows more than we do. She really knows how to strut her stuff. She was trained by inmates at the Arizona state prison in Florence. They work with the Bureau of Land Management which are in charge of all the wild mustangs and burros in Arizona. To help them get better homes when they are adopted, the mustangs and burros are brought to the prison and some of the prisoners work with them. They learn to pull a cart, work under a pack saddle and ground manners among other important lessons. I think Missy was probably an A student, she has a beautiful trot.
We have a cart, so hopefully we'll be able to train some of the donkeys to pull it. Actually a couple of them have experience with a cart, and like Missy probably know more than we do.
Well it sure feels like spring around here, and the donkeys seem to think so. They are busy eating the creosote bushes and digging up the prickly pear to eat. We're having to be careful when we put our hands on their faces, especially around their mouths. The other day Benji had so many stickers in his lips he looked like a walrus. I tried to pick some of them out and he wasn't interested. You'd think they would want to get them out, but the spines don't seem to bother them as much as they bother us.
This is Leddy digging up a prickly pear from the roots. They pull the cactus out of the ground and eat it from the root end. Today three of them were squabbling over a bed of cactus when I was giving a tour. Bunny seemed to think it was her private cactus patch. The other two just ignored her tantrum and she finally allowed them to dig too. She's real good at letting the other donkeys know she isn't happy. She squeals and growls, pins her ears, threatens to bite them and swings her butt back and forth, especially if there is more than one getting her wrath.
Dr. Jeremy came out yesterday to look at Big Gus and his lump. He said it is a lymph node and that as an old guy, he probably has or had a loose tooth that probably got food around it. His breath wasn't very good when this all started, and he was drooling like crazy. Since he's been on antibiotics the lymph node is getting smaller, the drooling is getting better, and his breath isn't as bad. At his age a tooth probably isn't going to be 1/2 inch thick, so it doesn't take much for them to just fall out. I will finish out the antibiotics and hopefully he won't have to have any treatment. He isn't the easiest donkey to work with, he uses his head as a weapon and it's a big heavy head........!!
This is Gus and Link playing. They actually spend quite a bit of time playing, the old guy and the "kid".
This is a parade of donkeys. They are probably headed for the waterer to get a drink. They all have a water bucket in their pens, but prefer the public waterer.
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