Well, John and I aren't as busy as Suzanne is. She's been to Empire Ranch with donkeys week-end before last and last week-end she took donkeys up to Black Canyon north of Phoenix for the 2nd annual Black Canyon Donkey Derby. It sounded like a good time was had by all, and our Harley finished 3rd in his race.....!!! John and I stay home and take care of the ones that didn't go.
When so many of the donkeys leave for a couple of days, the dynamics of the herd changes. Usually Frijolita leads the "A" team as they move around the property. Tula is actually the head jenny, so we assume Frijolita is her sergeant. With Frijolita gone, Ruthie stepped into the job of leading the herd. Tula never leads, but the herd recognizes her as the head jenny. I don't think she wanted the job, she really hates it when the boys come into her pen. John and her have a game they play to get the "riff raff" out. She watches John and when he is in the right place, she will run out of the pen and of course the boys follow her. She sees John heading for the gate, and runs back in, so John can close the gate before the boys figure out what happened..........!!! LOL You can almost see her smile when she outsmarts them like that.
Black Canyon was a 3 day show. Besides the races they also had other events like obstacle courses, poop bingo, children's games, and a costume contest. I didn't hear for sure how many teams there were, but the least number I heard was 58 teams running.
The next race will be in Tombstone the 2nd of April, the Desert Donkey Dash. On April 9th the California Breakfast Burritos will have a race in California. We will not be renting any donkeys for Tombstotne, although some of our volunteers will be running in the race with some of our donkeys. Suzanne will be taking 10 donkeys to California for that race, so she will have a couple of busy week-ends again. I think that is about it for races this spring. It won't be too long before it gets too hot to be outside and expect the donkeys to want to run. When it gets hot all they want to do is to find shade and stand there until time to eat again. I think they might be a little bit smarter than people, actually I think that quite often..........!!! LOL
Tonight Beefy wanted to play games when it was time to go into his pen for feeding. He and the "A" team were the last ones in, I went over to Burroland the 20 acres of wild country "ie" donkey playground. He's still getting raspberry leaves because he is still being too obnoxious with the girls. Poor Frijolita has "hickeys" all over her body. Well, they are bite marks, but we've been calling them hickeys. The raspbetty leaves seem to help him behave. He was gelded in Dec, and it will probably take about 6 months for his hormone level to drop to gelding levels.
Tonight he followed the girls down to their pens and as usual didn't want to leave. Usually after a couple of minutes of insisting he'll follow you to his pen. When I have to go out and bring them in, I try to make it as unpleasant an experience as possible and if I can get them to run for the pen area, that's a good thing. They don't need to come in at a stroll, it's not like they don't know what time it is. If we're late they usually let us know about it.
By the time, they got to the pens, Ruthie wouldn't take a carrot from me. She changed her mind when I went out of the pen and closed the gate, so she got her carrot. Next time she will probably be less cranky about being so mistreated......!!
Beefy was watching and when I told him to go where he belonged, he just stood there like he had no idea what I wanted him to do. Got him moving at a pace a turtle would be ashamed of. Then he went off trail, got him back, he went around the corner and headed the opposite way from his pen. John had to stand guard to keep him from wandering everywhere but where he was suppose to go. GRRRRR......!! Once John was blocking his best opportunity to make me pay for expecting him to be a good boy and go in his pen, he headed for his pen and walked right past it. Got him turned around and he went in his pen just like it was his idea. He probably won't do it again, almost everyone of them have tried to see how far they can go at least once or twice. That's why with donkeys if you start something, you have to finish it, no matter how long it takes
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