Sunday, September 28, 2008

Yesterday everyone had to stay in for the day because we went racing last night. After I fed & was getting ready to leave, I noticed Rocky was in Buster & Lucy's pen & Buster was standing in the open gate. My first thought was, Rocky had learned to open a gate with a drop latch. I went over to "encourage" Buster to go back in & run Rocky out. Imagine my surprise when I saw Chili standing in the middle of the pen, actually looking pretty proud of himself. He's always been able to open a drop latch about as quick as I can close it, so if he's in a pen with that type of gate, we have to "fix" it, so he can't do that. The pen he shares with Tula has a chain that fits thru a slot. I assume he has added another skill to his list of "things to do that irritate humans", since he was no longer in that pen............!!! Max the horse has always been able to bounce the chains until he can get them open, but Chili is the first donkey to figure it out.

Tonight I was feeding by myself & got kicked. Almost always, if you get kicked it's your fault......!!!! It's been a long time since I did something stupid enough to pay the price. I was rounding up donkeys for feeding & Gus, as usual was hanging around the feed room door. Chili hadn't gone in his pen yet, & was also hanging around the feed room door, which really ticked Gus off. He thinks of that position as his & his alone. I led Pepper to his pen & was coming back around the side of the feed room. I've done it the same way dozens of times, with Gus there.....BUT.....not with Chili irritating him. BAM.........he got me on the thigh. I just happened to have a crop on my wrist, so we had a little education on looking before kicking, across hill & dale. Of course after I popped him with the crop once, it turned into me chasing him & shrieking like a banchee. I chased him across the wash, & came back to the feed room. When I came out a few minutes later, he was standing behind the big cat claw tree by Max's pen peeking around the trunk. By the time I fed, he had forgiven me. It was my fault I got kicked, but I had to discipline him as the head jenny would under the same circumstances. Someone has to be in charge & I prefer it to be me...........!!!! (G)

2 comments:

PaintedPromise said...

someone has to be in charge here too, and like you, i prefer it to be me!

Tish said...

Have you ever noticed that with some of them you have to keep reminding them who is in charge?