soggy donkey herder on Nostr: Well, I’ve given my wary #donkey two pleasant surprises today. When I went out to ...
Well, I’ve given my wary #donkey two pleasant surprises today.
When I went out to feed lunch, the gate from the paddock where they eat grain food to the meadow where they wander and nibble had blown closed. Donkey Samwise was trapped in the meadow while mare Miss D was waiting in the run in! I poured their two bowls of pelleted feed then walked over and slowly eased the gate open for Samwise. He was so nervous, being separated from his #horse buddy (who no longer cared because food), and the gate opens outward past a tree on a slope. I managed to get it open and peek around the edge and show him how to get back in without scaring him further. He had the strangest manner about him! I don’t think he’s ever had a human solve a problem that wasn’t created by another human - we’re really just not to be trusted. I think it weirded him out that I’d done something for him that overall reduced his stress that much!
So just now, I was refilling the trough after serving First Dinner, and I remembered how much Samwise likes to sneak out an unlatched door and go munch in the orchard while Miss D shrieks in fury because she can’t figure out how to join him. So I offered it to him. I opened the sliding stall door donkey-wide and went and stood in the driveway and called him, encouraging him over and over, until he finally squeezed out on his own. Because it wasn’t his idea, he got nervous as soon as Miss D noticed he was gone, but he made a circuit around my truck and grabbed a mouthful of gravel-weeds before he went back in.
Working with animals involves so much working with myself, in addition to all the patience. Why did it take so long for me to try that? Because it takes time, that’s why. Because I’m making it up as I go. Because I’m treating a wary donkey like the sentient creature he is, not like an object to be handled however carefully.
I’m pretty sure, at this point, that I could halter-break the donkey with persistence and clicker training and just tackling it like a project, but I know that if i do it that way he’ll always flinch just a bit when I touch him. But I think, if I keep going with the very slow route I’m using, we can end up being partners instead. I think of what I’m doing as always waiting for his consent if I’m doing something with him or offering to touch him, and treating him exactly like Miss D when I need him to move out of my way or something. I get my safe bubble - not hard with these two - but otherwise I don’t boss him. We’re getting there.
When I went out to feed lunch, the gate from the paddock where they eat grain food to the meadow where they wander and nibble had blown closed. Donkey Samwise was trapped in the meadow while mare Miss D was waiting in the run in! I poured their two bowls of pelleted feed then walked over and slowly eased the gate open for Samwise. He was so nervous, being separated from his #horse buddy (who no longer cared because food), and the gate opens outward past a tree on a slope. I managed to get it open and peek around the edge and show him how to get back in without scaring him further. He had the strangest manner about him! I don’t think he’s ever had a human solve a problem that wasn’t created by another human - we’re really just not to be trusted. I think it weirded him out that I’d done something for him that overall reduced his stress that much!
So just now, I was refilling the trough after serving First Dinner, and I remembered how much Samwise likes to sneak out an unlatched door and go munch in the orchard while Miss D shrieks in fury because she can’t figure out how to join him. So I offered it to him. I opened the sliding stall door donkey-wide and went and stood in the driveway and called him, encouraging him over and over, until he finally squeezed out on his own. Because it wasn’t his idea, he got nervous as soon as Miss D noticed he was gone, but he made a circuit around my truck and grabbed a mouthful of gravel-weeds before he went back in.
Working with animals involves so much working with myself, in addition to all the patience. Why did it take so long for me to try that? Because it takes time, that’s why. Because I’m making it up as I go. Because I’m treating a wary donkey like the sentient creature he is, not like an object to be handled however carefully.
I’m pretty sure, at this point, that I could halter-break the donkey with persistence and clicker training and just tackling it like a project, but I know that if i do it that way he’ll always flinch just a bit when I touch him. But I think, if I keep going with the very slow route I’m using, we can end up being partners instead. I think of what I’m doing as always waiting for his consent if I’m doing something with him or offering to touch him, and treating him exactly like Miss D when I need him to move out of my way or something. I get my safe bubble - not hard with these two - but otherwise I don’t boss him. We’re getting there.