Forever Home Donkey Rescue

Wow Bert was in & out before noon today. He said whatever we're doing to keep doing it, because only 2 needed work.  

He looked at Tucker's parrot mouth.  I told him the molars had been x-rayed & were perfectly aligned.  He said if they weren't he could actually do some work on Tucker & help to overcome some of the overbite.  He said he will get along just fine & could even eat grass in a pasture if he was ever lucky enough to have pasture.  He said they learn to use their tongue to get the grass.  He also said they are inclined to overeat more than one with a normal mouth.  

I love to hear him talk, he's always sharing information that I find really interesting & hopefully useful. Of course a lot of it is so far over my head, I'm not sure he's speaking English?  And I know he's simplifying a lot of it.  

Justin & Ruthie were the only 2 that needed anything done & they weren't really bad, just needed some sharp areas filed down.  

 Ruthie & Bert getting to know each other

We had Rusty's teeth done back in late 2011 when we had Drifter's teeth done.  Rusty had been moving his jaw in a weird way like he had it hung up or something.  Since Drifter was going for dental work we threw Rusty into the trailer too.  I've never used anyone but Bert & hopefully I'll never have to again.  The guy automatically drugged them, & used power tools.  That's a quick way to run out of teeth, if not used properly, which a lot of them don't.  Ever since Rusty was done he has been chewing a lot & it takes him longer to finish his hay.  Bert said it's because of the way his teeth were done & there isn't anything he can do now.  But maybe by fall, when Bert comes back thru, a few months of using the teeth the way they are will give him something to work with.  

Unfortunately we got some bad news.  When he looked in Pepper's mouth, he found a tumor that smells.  It's up in the right side of his palate about the size of a quarter, not very thick.  I've been on the internet this afternoon, but haven't found anything encouraging.  We were talking about taking him to have a biopsy & Bert asked why?  After thinking about it........Pepper is somewhere on the other side of 30 or 35.  He's had a broken hip & a blown knee.  Right now his quality of life is good, he eats his mush, ears are up, eyes are bright & he's always ready to get out of the pen & go chase the girls.  If we started messing with it, would his quality of life be as good?  So we will probably wait & watch & when the time comes that he isn't interested in trying to knock us over to get out of his pen, we'll let him go. 

This is the part we hate, having to make these decisions.  But when we decided to take in the unadoptable for the most part, it goes with the territory.  But we don't have to like it.