NEVER COUNT THE OLD GUYS OUT........!!

Cisco is somewhere in his 20's.  He was one of original 5, when we started thinking about doing rescue in the late 90's.

I had put an ad in the paper to take free donkeys and a roping school called.  At first they wanted us to buy him, which we weren't going to do.  So then they said just come and get him.  He was out in a field standing with his head down, not reacting to anything or anybody.  We got him in the trailer, brought him home and he stood that way completely uninvolved in life for over 3 years.  The only way roping donkeys can try to protect themselves is to shut down emotionally.  I've heard stories of them being hit with a HotShot and not even reacting.  Very sad. 

He wouldn't react to the donkeys or anything going on around him.  When the summer fly season started we found out he had horrible skin problems and was a fly magnet.   We had lost the 1st Cisco from the same problems and I swore we would not lose this one.  It was a long hot summer, I ended up just about living in the corral with him, trying to keep him from biting itchy places till they bled, which drew flies, which caused the problem to just get worse.  

At one time a local woman made him a "suit" to protect him, especially his very venerable sheath.  

This is what his sheath looked like after a couple of years.  This was surgically removed and the vet couldn't tell us what it was for sure.  It looked like lard inside, very few blood vessels inside, a couple of big ones outside, that caused a lot of excitement in the operating room as blood shot up in the air.  

His legs have never been very strong, very rarely would he move quicker than a slow ramble.  A few years ago he started choking when he ate.  We had a barium x-ray done of his throat and the esophagus looks just fine.  So we think that the muscles in his neck might have been damaged during his time at the roping school.  The students were allowed to take him home to practice on.  Who knows what they did with him.  Since the x-ray, he has eaten a mush and John cuts his hay up with a leaf shredder and then wets it, so it's easier to swallow.  He does really good, occasionally we'll hear him coughing, but it's been a long time since he actually choked.  

As he's gotten older the legs have gotten less steady.  Gus has done so well on Previcox, I decided to see if it would help Cisco be more comfortable.  He's been on it for a little while and we thought he might be walking a little easier.  

Yesterday when we came in from town, we noticed Coquette was "entertaining".  For anyone that has never seen a jenny when she is cycling, it can be quite a show......LOL  Coquette was giving it her all and I thought Boaz was seeing if he might be Mr. Right.  On 2nd thought, Cisco was trying to be Mr. Right, was in position and after 3 or 4 abortive attempts manage to climb aboard.  That was about all there was to it and he dropped back down to earth.  Then they both just looked at us like, "what are you two looking at?"  I swear I saw a gleam in his eye thru the fly mask.  I gave him a high five and told him what a good boy he was.  Who knew, he has never shown any interest in any of the jennies...........never.....!!  After all these years it's got to be the Previcox.  I'm so glad we found something to help him be more comfortable.  Obviously he's feeling pretty good, Courtney doesn't even lift his feet very high, when she trims his feet because he always acted like it hurt.....!!

LOOKS LIKE I'M GOOFING OFF........!!

It's been a week since I updated the blog, I think that is a record, don't think I've ever done that before except if I was gone someplace and usually I'm not gone that long.  

There really hasn't been that much to write about.  It's cooling off, which means less doctoring for skin conditions, which is really great.  Last night John took off the fly masks for the night.  Usually in the summer during fly season, we just leave them on, because the flies get up before we do. 

We had to take Anubis the dog, back to the vet again.  She was in awhile back for being lethargic and as the x-ray showed, full of, well let's just say she hadn't been going "regularly" for some reason.  Got that all taken care of and she started limping around 3 legged lame.  My "expert" opinion was hip, but Nancy said it's her knee.  I have been giving her Previcox until I could get her in and she's almost back to normal.  According to Nancy, Previcox is one of the great inventions in the world, for man or beast.  Hmmm......maybe I'll trade my Aleve for Previcox.  Anyway, while there they said they'd clip her nails and break off some teeth plaque.  In the process of teeth cleaning we found out she has one tooth that is loose and another one that has shrunken gums, exposing part of the root.  So now she gets to go back in next Monday for a snooze and removal of 2 teeth.

I'm giving a couple of the donkeys Previcox and it has really made a difference in their ability to walk around comfortable, old Pepper for one.  Nancy said that equine assimilate it differently and while dogs can take 227 mg or more, equine are much more sensitive and only should have 57mg or even half of that.  Who would ever think that equine should have much less of a type of medication than dogs?

The picture above is Boaz's knee, I took the picture to show Nancy that it is "finally" healed.  I think she was as excited as I was, 3 surgeries, lots of doctoring and wrapping over almost 3 years.  That little spot at the top, seems to be where he puts pressure when he lays down.  It hasn't been open in quite awhile, but I keep an eye on it.  I'm just glad I don't have to keep the knee wrapped all the time.

I told her about the problem with trying to get Pepsi to take the cancer medicine Neoplasene.  She said to mix it up with a double handful of grain.............YIKES....!!!  I can't imagine what he would look like after 3 months of that diet twice a day, the Goodyear blimp comes to mind.  This morning we separated him from Lynn and Justin and I gave him 1/2 cup of oats, with 1/2 cup of senior feed.  I added a teaspoon of molasses with a "dab" (do you know how small a dab it?) of the offending medicine.  NOPE...!!!  He did eat hay out of the other end of the bunk, but that's as close as he would come to it.  So tonight I'm going to see if I can get him to eat the oats and senior feed without anything added.  I'm sure he will think that is just fine, then maybe I can add molasses and that will probably be OK too.  After that I'm sure when I add a "dab" of you know what, I will get the judgemental look as he stands there and everyone else is eating.  SIGH!  She said she had never had one refuse it.  John said the owners probably told her they were feeding it, but weren't.....!!! LOL

We are not going to do the Cascabel Christmas Fair this year.  I think we've done it 6 or 7 years and it's a lot of fun.  Even though we don't have much to do, to get ready it's still a lot of work.  I'm sure there will be some disappointed people, every year we had people come that had been here before.  What I found interesting is the kids that remembered certain donkeys or mules, especially if they weren't still here.  A lot of people remembered Sha'ba, I guess because his ears had been cut off and most people had a hard time accepting the fact that there are people in the world capable of such cruelty.

 

RIP, SHA'BA.......he still loved people