TRAINING RUN IN CATALINA STATE PARK TOMORROW MORNING

 Suzanne headed out today with a herd of donkeys to go have some fun in the morning.  Some friends are bringing their donkeys too.  The trail is different lengths up to about 16 miles.  Most will be walking or jogging, but I think Koshare and Cochise are going with Jennifer and Adam and will go long.  Jennifer ran with Koshare at Superior and they won the 6 mile.  Her husband Adam hasn't ran with a burro yet, so this will be his chance to find out if he likes to run with the burros or not. 

We had a tour today of people from Pennsylvania that are visiting the area.  One thing led to another and Suzanne loaded Jackson and LaRoy for them to walk with tomorrow.  They'll have something to talk about when they get back to PA.

The view from the pens in Catalina State Park

Good thing Suzanne took the corral panels to make a corral, even though there are pens in the park to use for equine.  She said she got there, unloaded the donkeys into the pen, and really quickly found out the pipe was about 3 feet off the ground.  A adequate corral for a horse perhaps, not for mini donkeys or in Siggy's case a micro mini.  She said she turned around and Siggy was beside her outside the pen, while she was taking care of that crisis, Jackson came out the other side to join them. 

So  she had to unload the corral panels after all to "beef" up the existing pen, so the little guys couldn't get out. 

Damage control 

Probably just as well, Koshare has learned to raise corral panels up and push them around and the end result is once the noise of banging corral panels is over, they can get out.  Suzanne said the pens are very well made and she thinks he's met his match.  Hopefully that's true, once donkeys learn to do something you don't want them to do, they get very good at it.....!!! LOL

Bella got to go on her second outing.  We've never taken her anywhere because of her weak hindquarters.  Since she's been here roaming the acreage, her legs have gotten stronger. She went to Empire Ranch a couple of weeks ago just to be there for "Show & Tell", consisting of petting and an occasional animal cracker from the adoring public.  She did great, so she got to go today as a short trail walker.  Suzanne said she was ready to go, hopped into the trailer like "let's go, where we going".  

Yesterday Suzanne and I spent the day at a specialty clinic with Charley the blind dog that showed up here a few months ago.  He got to see a doggie ophthalmologist to see if his cataracts could be removed, so he could see.  They did all sorts of test, took all afternoon.  The doctor told us that Australian Cattle Dogs are known to have retina failure, that's what the tests were for.  

We saw the graph of his retina test and it was not good.  She showed us a graft of a normal retina and then showed us his.  He has no working retina in either eye, so he is permanently blind, which is very disappointing.  He's such a well mannered happy dog it's a shame nothing can be done to help him.  But dogs do very well blind.  He's got a 30 by 70 pen foot, a doggie door into the feed room and he knows his area really well.  The people at the clinic thought he was really a nice dog, they said he just slept until they needed him for a test and he was happy to oblige and then went back to sleep.

We can't let him out on the property, he also doesn't hear very well, and the donkeys see dogs as a predator and will try to kill him.  Big Gus got in his pen awhile back and if Suzanne hadn't seen what was going on, probably would have killed him.  They actually share a fence and Big Gus spends quite a bit of time when he's in the pen, trying to dig into Charley's pen.  We put a railroad tie against the bottom of the fence, so now Gus is digging beside the tie.  I guess he's determined to get that dog........!!!