HAPPY DONKEYS

jack (l) and Jenny (r) at breakfast

The donkey meadow has a green 5 o'clock shadow. Wednesday I noticed the first hint of green, Thursday a little more. Overcast and rain, then the last two days of sunlight and warm nights, the donkeys are roaming about the meadow nibbling where they can find something long enough to bite. The fresh grass must taste especially delicious to them after a long winter of eating hay. The last several mornings I have been not so careful with my fingers giving them carrots. Both Jenny and Jack have touched my fingers with their teeth in such a way they could have bit, but recognized it was my finger on contact and moved their teeth to the carrot. It showed me they have no intent to bite my fingers and I need not be protective of fingers from here on. Out in the field with them, I walk around them close enough to make them automatically wary, but they show no sign of discomfort and I feel comfortable too. I feel affirmed every time I walk close behind Jenny and she doesn't even change the rhythm of her munching. I've been careful not to surprise them. They taught me early that donkeys are wary of human arms. They're unpredictable and they grab donkeys and control them. I've never controlled them physically. I've only controlled the donkeys mentally by showing them I am interested in their well-being and appreciate the persons they are. I was told so many times in the first months to carry a stick, they'll kick me, warned repeatedly. I knew otherwise. Like the time I had three kittens two weeks old and their mother ran under a car. I went to the vet to buy formula and ask for some tips. I was told they would die. I knew they would live, but also knew he wouldn't believe me if I said it. He would see in time. Caterpillar's eighteenth birthday is coming up soon, Mother's Day. 

siesta time in the donkey meadow

The four-leggeds that have lived with me taught me their ways, their natures. I found when I allowed them to be themselves, not correct and scold them, not hit them, not talk down to them, and pay attention to their communications, the four-leggeds are benign, loving people who want to get along and be happy. Jack and Jenny are gentle and content with each other all day and all night. Sometimes when Jack brays, Jenny gets antsy, backs up to him and fake kicks him until he stops. I'm wondering if she's jealous because she can't bray like him. Her bray is a high-pitched squeal. I have the impression she is frustrated with herself. She's been trying a year and a half to get Jack's bray and it will not come to her. I'm guessing it pisses her off that Jack is such a good brayer and she can't get it; she's bigger than him and ought to be able to bray bigger too. She squeals like a hound dog in pain. She dislikes it so much she has stopped using her bray and just squeals. I do get the feeling she is intimidated by Jack's bray and resents him for it. It fits Jenny's jealous nature. I wonder, too, if the excitement seeing the Ice Cream man with morning carrots that sets Jack into a bray might excite Jenny too. She gets jealous over the Ice Cream man, wants him all to herself. Sometimes they back up to each other and have a fake kick-boxing match. Both hop up and down in back like they're kicking, but only touch each other with their back knees. It's play for them. No intent to kick or hurt. They just get excited and this is what donkeys do when they get excited. I take sweet grain to them in the mid afternoon. When it's time, they stand at the fence and bray for me. They back up to each other and pretend kick, hop up and down on the back legs, doing what donkeys do, sparring without hitting. 

jack (l) and jenny (r)

I reach over the fence to pour the grain. I like having the fence between me and them. They get rambunctious in a way that they forget everything else but the grain. Jenny will have it first. I walk the fence to the place I pour some for Jenny, her beside me, chin over the fence smelling the container, squealing, ears back. Jack is close, wants to be beside her, but she kicks and keeps him back while he squeals and groans, makes sounds like a whimpering child crying. I pour it for Jenny and she's eating before I finish pouring. She doesn't care if I pour it on her head. Next, Jack squealing and dancing, his nose to the container over the fence, crying, groaning, squealing to have his grain. I pour it for him at the same spot every day and he, like Jenny, is eating before I'm finished pouring. They're done with me. I get too close and their ears go back. I'm not afraid of them kicking me the other side of the fence. They get so excited over the grain they lose consciousness and then I'm in a donkey mosh pit. I don't see any need to train the excitement out of them. They learn my ways, I learn their ways. Rather than attempt to stop them getting excited, I just get out of the way and let them have at it. Jack is a happy spirited donkey by nature. He forgives readily and defers to his baby doll, Donkey Jen. He loves Jenny so much he's in bliss in her presence. Jenny loves him the same. They appear to me to beam in the presence of the other. My presence changes everything for them. This afternoon they were out in the meadow resting on the hay they were eating, siesta. 

jack's legs

I saw them through the window and thought Id see if I could sneak out the door and creep behind the white pine trunk as out of sight as possible. As soon as I set the camera where it could see them, Alpha Jack saw the camera and me. He went to braying. Jenny stood up, backed up to him and hopped up and down, forcing him to stop. He took off in a half gallop running to Ice Cream man for some grain. Jenny followed walking. They are as gentle with me as children. It's my love vibration that allows them to let down their defenses. I keep my arms down at my sides around them. I don't make sudden movements to frighten them. They are skittish as cats. I do with them like Jane Goodall did with the chimpanzees. The donkeys don't like to be touched by surprise. I keep my arms down and my hands to myself. I touch when they want to be touched. Today, I saw Jenny rubbing the bridge of her nose on the fencepost. I put my hand on the bridge of her nose and rubbed her where she was scratching. She wanted me to hold my hand still and she rubbed her nose on my hand where she had the itch or whatever it was she was scratching. It was fun for me to let her scratch her nose on my hand. The only place Jenny likes to be touched is on her back at the front shoulder where the stripes cross. Jack likes me to rub that spot for him too. After I rub Jenny on that spot, she likes for me to rub her neck, her spine, her rump, the shoulders of her legs. She will even let me rub her legs now. Touching legs was off limits for a long time. Jack loves to have his legs rubbed. Jenny will let me rub her legs after seeing me rub Jack's legs. She gets jealous and wants the same for herself. I like the love energy that flows around us the times of day we're together. It makes us gentle with each other.  

feisty donkeys

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DONKEY JACK AND DONKEY JEN

donkey jenny

The donkeys are such good natured donkeys that I am able to know them as I would know a dog. Big powerful beasts I would not have a chance attacked by one with murderous intent. They don't have court. It would take a lot to make a donkey kill a man, but mistreating one is a very dangerous thing to do. There comes a time they've had enough. They know my size and they know their size. They know I'm easy to push over. I'm not as certain on two feet as they are on four. I'd be gone in half a minute if one of the donkeys went at me furious. So I don't make them furious. I treat them the way I want them to treat me, and they do. Every living thing gives what they get. It's natural law like gravity and the speed of light. This is why it's in all the scriptures of all the religions. I don't hit donkeys with a stick, they don't kick me. I love having a friendship with a beast as powerful as a bear and with a brilliant mind that catches on as fast as a child's. I feel completely safe with the donkeys. Children are safe with them. They adore kids. I've tamed them not by training, but by loving them. I love them, they love me. I recall in the first weeks of becoming acquainted with Jack, one day I was visiting with him and said to him, You're my friend. He snorted and shook his head like in a slight uncontrollable spasm. He understood what I said. He liked hearing it. Every time I call him Friend, a mild calm runs through him. My familiar name for him is Donkey Jack. He likes Donkey Jack. I have both of them proud to be donkeys. I praise their beautiful donkey nature, their donkey minds, their donkey faces, donkey ears, donkey body, donkey legs and hooves, donkey speed, donkey power. I tell them both daily they are beautiful donkeys. At carrot time, I get down and look Jenny in the eye and say, I love you, beautiful donkey. Her eye responds by showing a degree of relaxation. Jenny's familiar name is Donkey Jen. She likes her name and Jack likes his. Both like to hear me speak their names. 

donkey jack

One day before Jenny arrived in the meadow, I was in the donkey shed with Jack. I said to him, I'd like to be able to ride you. He snorted, wiggled his head and held it down. I felt like he was saying he'd like me to ride him too. I said, But I'm so heavy now, I wouldn't want to risk hurting your back. He smiled, snorted and it felt like I heard him say, Thanks for the consideration. I heard those exact words in my mind's ear. I wondered if I might be tapping into his telepathic zone. I feel so certainly they read me by way of telepathy, I go to them with clear mind. The only danger I have in the meadow is they get so jealous, they'll take turns keeping the other away from me. At the fence in the morning for carrot time, Jack in his Alpha role comes running. He squeals and brays. I give him carrot while Jenny takes her time walking along. She approaches for her carrot, Jack squeals and snorts, donkey growling, turns his rear end to her telling her to stay back, MY ice cream man! Jack settles down as quickly as the gesture was begun. Jenny backs up a little to get out of range if Jack were to kick. He doesn't kick and she reaches to me with her lips reaching for carrot. Jack settles down and they stand side by side munching carrot. It was quite different in Jenny's time as Alpha. She would arrive at the fence first. As soon as Jack was anywhere near, see went at him kicking him, biting at him, sending him in a big half circle around her on his way to the carrot. I'd step over a ways to make it easier for him getting past Jenny. Once he took his first carrot, Jenny settled down. She was haughty with him, bold, a very difficult woman with Jack, and kicked him so much he took to liking it. She is bigger than Jack and feistier. However, when Jack goes into action, he is fierce as a dog. I saw Jenny and Jack fight enough during their early months together to get the picture, they are powerful. They fight like horses. I know better than to piss off a donkey. Like I say, they don't have court, nor do they have the Ten Commandments. 

jenny trickles down

It's by the force of their will they allow me to live. Both are free to swing around and let me have it any time I'm around them. Once, I stepped in the way when Jenny was about to pop Jack with a back hoof and she touched my leg. It was no more than a touch. At the moment of contact she realized she'd hit me, not Jack. She withdrew the power from the kick immediately so all I felt was a mere touch. Another time, I stepped between them just as Jack was hauling off to let Jenny have it. His hoof touched the back of my hand about like a butterfly landing. He realized on contact he'd hit the wrong one and pulled the power out of his kick so it was just a touch. I didn't scold him. I was impressed. I said, Thank you, Friend. I heard a statistic from a reliable source that in the course of a year more people around the world are killed by donkeys than die in plane crashes. That was the only thing I knew about donkeys when Jack took up here. I imagined an awful lot of men who work donkeys are not good to them. According to the range of human nature, some are good to donkeys and some are not, in degrees from one pole to the other. The statistic tells me a donkey will take abuse like a dog, but unlike a dog, a donkey doesn't have loyalty unto death in its nature. Donkeys want to please us. Don't allow the opportunity to be pleased, hit them and only scold them, there comes a moment the donkey says, I have given you my all and you did not deserve it. The western USA has wild donkey herds. I'm sure the mountains of Central and South America have herds of wild donkeys, herds that came from donkeys that escaped perhaps an abusive human and reproduced into a herd. Surely the Middle East has donkey herds in its remotest regions. Iran is covered with mountains. Surely donkey herds live in those hills. Southeast Asia surely has wild donkeys, rural China, Siberia. Original donkeys in Somalia are endangered down to around 500, the number shrinking fast. They eat them there. They also live in extreme poverty.

jack sniffs it

I want my donkeys to have a good donkey life. Ideally, they would live in a herd, but herd is not practical in circumstances here. I don't want a herd to deal with. I don't want a dozen kick-boxers stamping around me jealous of each other, back ends hopping up and down, legs kicking. It's weird enough between two of them going into a kick fest, even knowing I won't be kicked. I don't like to test trust. Trust gets tested by way of unforeseen circumstances enough without pop tests complicating it. I step out from between them and say, I'm going back to my barn. They settle down and return to grazing. The donkeys have shown me what I've seen in other four-leggeds I've known, dogs and cats, they hear, see and pay attention while giving the appearance they are not. We learn from the time we're babies that we are required to show that we are listening when talked to. They've never been taught you have to at least act like you're paying attention. I talk to them while they're grazing and they show no sign that they're listening, except I can see it in the way they're grazing that they're multi-tasking, grazing and listening to the ice cream man. Jenny and Jack are so familiar with the camera now they get frisky with it. Invariably, they, both of them, will run their nose right up to it just as I'm about to take a picture of a donkey face, giving me a donkey nose, and sometimes donkey teeth. Both act like they want to bite it but I know they only want to feel it with their lips and teeth, so I let them. Jenny made a dive for the camera, I held it for her like a carrot and clicked when she opened her mouth. Now that Jenny has given Alpha over to Jack, which she did in May, she is gentle and sweet all the time. She's still frisky Jenny, but only when Jack gets too close. Her eyes are different when she's not Alpha. Alpha, her eyes flash, she's in control, she's in charge, she wants all concerned to be aware of it. I so seldom see that flash in her eyes anymore, I sometimes wonder if she's not well. Her eyes are calm and serene all the time. She seems like she's in meditation with eyes open. Jack is a let-it-be Alpha. He is the lookout for the territory and first for carrots. Jenny defers to him as her conqueror. Once Jack conquered Jenny, she fell in love with him and passed Alpha to him.      

   

jack curls his lip

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DONKEY MOODS DAY TO DAY

jenny chews a carrot

Today is day off. I have gone someplace every day this week past. I don't sleep well when I have schedules; worry about not waking up in time makes it hard to get to sleep sometimes. Actually, a few times, maybe two I can recall, mind running everywhere keeping itself awake from fear of falling asleep and not waking up in time. Those nights I get up after awhile and write or read until I can't stay awake another minute, then crash and wake up on time too tired to get up. It doesn't happen much, so it's ok. It's just an odd thing. If I'm leaving to go someplace for a short period of time, I wait til the morning to leave for packing; if I pack the night before, I can't sleep. I don't care about investigating and curing this psychological quirk. It's harmless. It's easy to sidestep. I so seldom have a problem with sleeping, though when I do, I just get up and do something until it wears me out. Took two naps today, one early, one late. Took hay and carrots to the donkeys twice. Jack came braying to me this morning when I approached the fence. He has joy in his eyes when he brays. A donkey bray sounds like a celebration of joy. Every morning when I go to the fence he walks quickly with his neck and head sticking straight forward like a Marini horse sculpture, mouth wrenched into position to wail on his tenor sax. Finished, he takes the chunk of carrot from my fingers with his lips. Jenny took her carrot chunks with her lips today, too. Yesterday, both took the carrot with their teeth with aggression in their eyes, not threat, but the I-want-it-now look. Whatever it was that had them worked up yesterday had subsided by this morning. Both were back to their gentle selves and using lips instead of teeth. Their upper lip can be used as a finger to pick things up with. They pick up the pieces of sweet grain I put on the ground for them. After it's all gone, they scour their ground picking up the stray pieces they find with the fingers they can make with their lips. They use the upper lip to twist a tuft of grass to more efficiently cut it loose with a bite. 

 

jenny eats her morning hay

 

Jenny was her gentle self this morning. I leaned down speaking into her nostrils and she raised her nose to touch my nose. Yesterday the gesture was with bared teeth making a dive for my nose. Today she touched my nose with her nose. A donkey's nose is soft like a horse's nose. The nose is sensitive as a fingertip. Jenny likes to run her nose lightly over my whiskers to feel them so lightly I hardly feel her. They have taught me to check their mood first thing. It's not from fear of them, but to seek where they are coming from at the beginning. Some days Jack and Jenny can stand side by side chewing carrots in comfort. Other days I need two donkey lengths between them at carrot time. The change I'm noting in this time is that it is less and less that I need to be aware of giving them the carrot with a distance between them. Today there was less than one donkey length between them. When Jenny is having jealousy attacks, she'll kick Jack and the calf when they enter her range. She kicks less and less. She used to kick Jack every time he came within range. Putting down the hay for them, I keep a distance between each mound of hay, primarily to give Jenny peace of mind. If Jack or the calf were about to enter her zone, she'd snort and blow her warning. Her zone is the circle with a radius the length of her body pivoting on front feet. She swings her rear end around instantly, quick as a cat. Yesterday while Jenny was chewing her hay, I went to walk by her and she swung her ass end around at me. I didn't jump. She wasn't going to kick. It was her way of telling me to stay out of her zone. She's hungry, she's eating and wants me to leave her alone. I don't mind her swinging her rear end around on me. It's an automatic defensive move. I don't want to force my mind on her. I respect her space. I've asked her to teach me donkey. She's teaching: Get back, now.

 

jack chews his morning hay

 

Yesterday, both Jennie and Jack were spirited. Today, they still had the spirit they had yesterday, but gentler, no aggressive impulses. I like both. I like it when Jack wants too close to me and Jenny heads him off, both of them frisky on either side of me, around me, inches away, doing their kick dance, Jenny's ears back, hind end hopping up and down. I get a charge out of seeing it up close, their hips and sides right next to me, their feet dancing around my feet, heavy, big, feisty animals, African herd animals. This is why I want them to know the ice cream man is no threat to them in any way. If I carried a stick and hit them, they'd be bumping into me and stepping on my feet when they're frisky with each other. Because the ice cream man respects their space, they respect my space. They are fully aware of their bodies in relation to what is around them. Jack threatened Jenny that he was going to get a bite of her hay yesterday, and she swung her ass end around at me almost heedlessly. I stopped her momentum placing my hand on her rump to say it's going too far, the ice cream man feels threatened. She calmed right down. Anymore, I don't move out of her way or brace myself to be kicked when she swings around on me. She's not going to kick me. If I were to swat her with a stick one time, I wouldn't feel as safe as I do now. She might let her self accidentally (on purpose) step on my foot or knock me down with a kick. They are very physical beings. Their bodies are their minds. If I want to get physical with them, I lose. I like to keep our relationship on the mental plane where we're about even and  communicate well by predictable habit and signals, some telepathy too. I feel as safe now with Jenny as with Jack. It tells me trust is established between us.

 

jack says howdy

 

On the road yesterday I saw a brown, long-haired donkey in a field with some black cattle. It looked like a South American donkey, a burro. By long hair, I mean a little longer than Jenny's. This donkey was a much darker brown than Jenny. Jenny is the brown of hot chocolate. This donkey was the brown of a football. Even furry looking ears. I've been studying Jack and Jenny from a distance, finding characteristics of each that I can note at a distance where they look the same. Jenny's brow is narrower than Jacks. Her face is narrow like a horse's. Jack's face is thick above the eyes and tapers down to his nose. Jenny's back legs don't have as much dog-leg in them as Jack's. His back legs have a pronounced angle in that bend. The angle in Jenny's dog-leg is about half way between Jack's and straight. Jack's back knees touch much of the time when he is standing still. Jenny's do not. She has the back legs of a mammoth donkey. Jenny's ears are either straight up or back. Jack's ears flop around every which way, individually; they're often back when Jenny is acting out her jealousies about her privileges as Alpha. Jack never challenges Jenny's status. This morning Jack took his carrot first. They were out in the meadow past the dogwood tree and Jack saw me first. He took off galloping and braying at once. Jenny took off behind him. He approached the fence in full bray. Jenny was still a ways behind him, so he got his carrot first. That one wasn't a problem, because he was first as a result of being the only one there. Jenny did not seem put out that Jack already had his carrot when she arrived. Their gentleness today in contrast to yesterday's aggression reminded me how different they are in their relationship with each other from one day to the next. I started giving them carrot before taking the hay into the meadow to preoccupy them. Since doing it awhile, I'm finding it makes a good time to read their mood for the day. Every day is emotionally unique for them.       

 

jenny having hay

 

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