THE CIRCUS IS COMING TO TOWN........!!

Looks like Lynn, Linda and the "circus" will get here Saturday.  Saturday is going to be a busy day, Tyler and Dr. Jeremy will be here in the morning to redo Gus, Rosie and Gigi's feet.  They are all doing pretty good for them.  Gus will never run any foot races and he has some days that are better than others.  BUT, he eats good and greets visitors when they come to see the donkeys.  A lot of the work Tyler has done on Gus especially was pretty experimental, or you might say, a last ditched effort to help him.  He's been in casting material for over a year and they are talking about just leaving the shoes on and see how he does, without the casting material.  Since they have worked with Gus they have also worked with other horses and donkeys.  Other farriers are also starting to try it.  

While Dr. Jeremy is here he might also remove the place on Boaz's chest that is about the size of a silver dollar, that I have been working with all summer and it is still a mess.  It's in a area with loose skin, and we've talked about just removing the whole thing and stitching it closed.  It couldn't do any worse than it has for months.

I'm racing Saturday night, we'll have to leave early in the afternoon to get to the track, so I can pill draw for my starting position.  When we raced on the dirt, we showed up right before the races started, jumped in the car and off we went for fun and adventure.  Not at this track, they turn it into an all day marathon.  So we won't be here when Lynn and Linda get here, guess we'll see them in Sunday morning.........LOL  Sunday afternoon we're suppose to go to a meeting in Tombstone to discuss having a pack burro race in the spring.  Teresa and Mike Benjamin have wanted to get pack racing started, it's really caught on in Colorado, this year was their 70th year, and although a lot of the mines in Arizona were owned by companies rather than individual miners, there is still a lot of history here and burros were used extensively all over the state for many reasons.  

Somewhere in all this they will have to get all the donkeys and dogs settled in and get their motor home dragged out of the hay barn and set up.  I'm sure they will get it all done without too many problems, they seem to do crisis management really well.........!!!  

Linda and Loki on the other side of the street.  Linda's not even touching the ground.......!!!

I think this is the infamous tunnel at Federick when they were practicing.  All their donkeys seemed to think it was no big deal.

The next day at the race, some of the other donkeys didn't think much of it.  I guess they ended up with some clusters of "Nope, not what I had planned today".........LOL  Bridges and tunnels seem to cause problems in these races.  Turbo and Loki aren't having any problem, Linda and Loki are in purple  right behind Turbo and Lynn.

 

Team Justin with Jennifer

They also did a people race and dogs were welcome.  Unfortunately Saddik found something to dead or worse to roll in right before they left home.  Linda said he really smelled bad, although I'm sure he didn't think so.  

He managed to find someone that thought he was really cool, smell or not....!!!  What a look on his face..!!

We took the white wing dove into the Wildlife Center in Tucson, Sunday afternoon.  When you go into the receiving area they have a blackboard with what wildlife they have and how many of each species.  I got so excited, they had 16 doves listed, until the lady told me none of them were white wings.  She said they had released all of theirs last week, which is about the time all of ours disappeared.  He still wouldn't have been ready to be released, so I guess he'll have to spend the winter in a pen in Tucson.  His tail was still angling to the left sometimes, so he may never be able to be released.  But at least he will be safe there and have some "cousins" to hang with.  I assume they will put him in with the others, they live in flocks and probably wouldn't do very well by themselves.  

 I did a little clicker training with Casper the mini mule this morning.  John's been moving donkeys around and working on pens, getting ready to add 7 donkeys to the group.  Jasper has been in Turbo's large pen all summer.  John moved him to the pen he was in before Turbo left in May, which is right beside Casper's pen.  Jasper seems to think Casper would make a good buddy, he watches him and usually spends part of the day standing by Casper's pen, so it seemed like a good place to put him.  It would be nice if Casper decided Jasper would make a good big brother to bond with.  I don't think Casper has probably ever bonded with anyone, he's a pretty independent little guy, so it probably won't happen.  

Jasper's pen was open when I started working with Casper, who incidentally did really good today, he even touched the target when I threw it on the ground in 2 or 3 different places.  Jasper was watching all this and figured out what was going on, Casper was doing something and getting rewarded.  So he started letting me know he wanted to play too.  When I got thru working with Casper I went out and showed Jasper the target........no problem.........his nose instantly went to the target, I clicked and he got about a tsp of senior feed.  I did it 3 or 4 times and no problem ....I may have a future clicker expert.....!!!  He had been in the same home for 19 years and I don't think they messed with him much, let alone clicker training.  So I assume he observed what was going on and figured it out on his own.  We've noticed he is real observant, he watches everything going on around here, and he's certainly not stupid, none of them are.......LOL