Yep, we have a donkey and yes, he comes with a reputation, a very BAD reputation.
You might ask, "why does he have a bad reputation", or, "where did we get him"? Read on dear friends and I'll tell you the story!
It all began about 8 weeks ago. I was telling my neighbor and friend Barb that I really needed a donkey so that I could practice my roping. Barb looked at me like I was crazy! "Practice roping on a donkey? Wouldn't it be better to just rope off of your rope horse instead of trying to train the donkey?" Clearly, I hadn't explained what a lead donkey was! I wanted a donkey to train to walk and trot around the round pen in front of my horse so I could practice throwing my rope in front of his back legs. No, I won't dally or pull his legs out from under him, I just need to work on the technique of getting that rope in front of his legs. Donkeys are great for this as they learn quickly and work in a set pattern. They soon understand that the rope is not going to hurt them and will not be pulled tight. Anyway, Barb went to searching for a donkey for me and within a couple of weeks , called me with a "free" donkey.
You see, this woman had raised this donkey and now had to get rid of him. His name is LeRoy and he had been very bad. She told me he is almost 3 years old and very naughty. Seems that she also raises sheep and her neighbors raise goats. Well, she was keeping her sheep in a pasture next to LeRoy and soon she was noticing terrible injury's to her sheeps ears. Many ears had been bitten off! Those poor little sheep were a sight to see! LeRoy was terrible to the farrier too and I guess they even had to sedate him for his appointments. He had to be tricked to be caught and he was not halter broke and would take her "pasture skiing" many times throughout the years! The final straw was when the neighbors little goats got into the pasture and LeRoy decided they were evil little devils that had to be destroyed! Well, he did that and created quite the neighbor war so LeRoy had to find a new home.
We decided that he might be the perfect donkey for us! Thank goodness that Ryan had come to Virginia for a weekend and it happened to be the weekend we were picking up LeRoy! Who would have known that Ryan posessed incredible "donkey whispering" skills? Ryan did the impossible and had LeRoy leading on his halter within about 30 minutes of our arrival. We were sure we would never get him into the trailer without a huge fight but that wasn't the case either. Somehow, LeRoy just wanted to trust Ryan! No kicking or biting or anything terrible. We were all quite surprised! Maybe the sheep and the goats were really the evil ones and poor LeRoy just couldn't wait to get out of there!
LeRoy has been here now for almost a month. He loves his horse pasture friends and doesn't seem to have anymore of the "ANGRY DONKEY" symptoms any longer. I'm even thinking of turning him into a trick donkey!
