I had a big breakthrough with Paddy, my mini donkey today, but I need to say “we” because it actually revolved around my partner David.
I’d like to define “trust” first though. For Paddy and myself, it means I’m someone that brings him nice things, gives good butt scratches when he asks, doesn’t scare him and helps him feel safe. I’m also predictable and consistent and look for his ‘voice’ in his behaviour and try to offer choices wherever possible. Especially when we play our little games with food (Positive Reinforcement training), I build his ‘voice’ into the training. I wait for him to communicate with me, tell me he’s ready, tell me he’s ok or even more than ok. I’ve worked diligently on developing his belief that I’m a good, and importantly for him, a safe person to be around. I’ve made myself trustworthy.
That was very evident today during our training, when I worked on introducing David to my donkeys in a training scenario. They’re all a bit wary of him and Paddy is flat out scared of him, so I need to change that. I need David’s help for upcoming vet visits and it’s good for all the donkeys to learn to trust other people, not just me and this is especially true for Paddy.
All the other donkeys are pretty cool with David if he has food. Seymour, who used to be the most fearful donkey, was very happy to interact and train with David. He even marched up to David and gave his Start Button (a head nod) as a kind of greeting and demand in one, it was pretty awesome! David then did some leading with Seymour and it all went beautifully, I was so pleased (with them both!).
Next was Paddy and he was very scared of David in his space. Padd was moving away, avoiding him, circling in a very wide berth and did a liquid poo, so there’s no way he’d go anywhere near him, even for food. But did I need to use Negative Reinforcement, approach and retreat or CAT? Definitely not.
I started by asking Paddy to station on his mat, where we do most of our training. I then asked David to stand a long distance away, roughly 5-6 metres and every time Paddy looked up at me and tilted his head inquiringly, to tell me he was ready (his Start Button), I dropped food in his bowl. That’s it, I’m focusing on Counter Conditioning, no behaviour required from Paddy, apart from his Start Button and I was carefully reading his body language every step.
Next session, David started in the same place, but when Paddy looked around at me expectantly, David took a step towards him and I and then I dropped food in his bowl. Now we are switching to systematic Desensitisation and Counter Conditioning. We did that slowly step by step, til David was standing at my shoulder and I was standing at Paddy’s shoulder. It was interesting to note that if David got too far in front of me, Paddy would back up and put me between us. I’m his safe person, of course.
Next session, David was able to take his place at my shoulder after a few steps and we did a few reps of him just standing there. Paddy would give me his Start Button, his ‘I’m ready’ look and I would drop food in his bowl. Then I suggested that when Paddy gave me that look, could David reach out his arm a little towards Paddy with a closed fist, and when Paddy looked at it, I marked that behaviour and dropped food in his bowl. Now we’ve switched to Positive Reinforcement! We did that a few more times with David raising his arm a little higher each time and offering his fist and trying not to bend over, as Paddy finds that super scary. Then the next time, Paddy carefully stretched his neck and reached his nose forward and tried to sniff David’s hand from a distance! I marked/clicked that behaviour and dropped food in his bowl! I suggested David put some food in his fist and next time, offer his fist and if Paddy is close enough, flip it and open it to reveal the food.
One of the early behaviours I taught Paddy was that if I backed away and he followed, I offered my closed fist with food in it and if he nudged it with his muzzle, his behaviour caused the fist to open and he could eat the food. One of the most powerful things I’ve learnt about training fearful animals is that teaching them their behaviour matters, that they have control over consequences, is a very powerful thing. It’s what opens the floodgates of behaviour and the light bulb goes off for the animal. They realise that we know how to communicate with them in a way they understand AND we give them a measure of control. Something they may never have experienced before. For Paddy, it’s always a game we play whenever he’s unsure and any time I back away from him, that’s his cue to follow me and there’ll be food in my fist, if he gives it a little nudge.
When I saw Paddy reach forward to sniff David’s hand, I saw curiosity replace fear. He was wondering if he could make the food appear as a consequence of his own behaviour, even with this strange scary man! It was exciting!
After Paddy gave his Start Button, David reached his arm forward, fist with food inside, closed, and we watched, holding our breath. Paddy reached forward and did his adorable little sideways muzzle nudge of his fist and David flipped his hand and omg there was food and Paddy ate it!
We were so happy, we smiled at each other and I said to David, you’ve done it, you’ve cracked the code with Paddy! Hooray!
Then of course I said, do it again, wait for his Start Button and David offered his fist and he did it again.
We got excited and I suggested backing away a few steps and then doing it again and Paddy followed us – he knew this game!
We were ecstatic. We backed up a few more times and finished on that high note.
To sum up, with really fearful animals, there’s no need to scare them or make them feel unsafe to get behaviour and then remove the scary stimulus to reinforce that behaviour (R-/CAT). Just because they’re scared of us, doesn’t mean we need to use that fear or deliberately scare them to get some kind of behaviour to reinforce. They know the difference between being scared and being able to create distance or run away and having control that way, and someone deliberately invading their space and repeatedly scaring them. We can instead take the time the animal needs, meet their basic needs, provide the safety of a herd or at least a companion, give them space to move around and then thin slice the Desensitisation steps and be generous with the Counter Conditioning (food).
I didn’t get any photos or videos, there was so much focus on Paddy and ensuring he was comfortable.
But I’ve got this brief video of Paddy doing his cute little nose bump of my fist for some hay. He was terrified of me at the start and wouldn’t even eat anything else besides hay or eat if I was nearby, or out of a bucket or my hand when he first came. So I had a lot of training to do just to be able to deliver the food in an expeditious and contiguous manner.
Click on the link to watch Paddy doing his little nose bump:-
I took on the care of 2 neglected donkeys Dorothy and Seymour, in January 2020. It’s now October, 2020.
They both had a number of serious health issues that needed tending, some have been resolved in the short term and some are long term projects. They both seem to have learnt not to trust people and Seymour in particular appears very frightened by people. They were difficult to catch, halter, lead etc and particularly difficult to trim; Seymour had not been trimmed in a very long time.
When I first got them, my approach was influenced by what I’ve learnt from amazing trainers/mentors like Ken Ramirez and Susan Friedman, from what I’ve read and studied and my understanding of the science of behaviour change.
I started out my relationship with them by being someone quietly predictable, consistent and that brought good things like nice grass hay. If they were scared and stood back that was fine, they still got nice hay, if they got a fright and ran away because of something I did by accident, that’s ok, they still got nice hay. Just for fun, I also paired my arrival every time, with a jolly shout out “hello!”. It didn’t take long for them to walk up when I arrived, then trot up and eventually be waiting at the gate for my arrival. When they started jostling each other to be the closest and I had trouble getting in the gate, then I knew real change was happening. That’s also when I went into Protected Contact for both our safety.
This is simply Classical Conditioning at work. There would have been an Operant component as well, as indicated by their change in behaviour, ie. they acted on their environment. But I focused on what I was doing and allowed them to just do what they felt most comfortable doing. I paired myself with things the donkeys liked, with no strings attached whatsoever (contingency). It doesn’t matter what they did, they didn’t have to do anything and even if they were scared and ran away, it didn’t matter. I did the same thing every day, often twice a day and my patience and consistency paid off with them learning to trust that I am reliable and to eventually learn to trust me.
They are both very different donkeys. My heart aches sometimes when I look at Seymour and understand what a super sensitive soul he is. But he is doing great! I am always focusing on our relationship, by being aware of Classical Conditioning and what I am pairing myself with and the emotional response that goes along with that. His training process is very much about a few steps forward and a step back now and again.
Seymour is making great progress with his hoof lifting training. He has started reliably lifting his right hoof and I’m shaping towards doing some rasping of it as well. Best of all, he lifts it so gently and as light as a feather – you can see the air between my hand and his hoof.
I took some hand held video, so you can see up close that I’m barely touching him, I’m waiting for his start button, cueing the hoof, not pulling or squeezing – he wouldn’t tolerate that at all and would kick out.
To think big burly farriers couldn’t rope him and get to his hooves and I’ve taught him to do it himself! AND most important of all, he feels emotionally safe and comfortable. I’m building the positive reinforcement history and the relationship and what is helping us make progress is ensuring I listen to him.
It was trimming day and Seymour finally got his back hoof trimmed for the first time! (This is a donkey who came to me very frightened, head shy and hadn’t been trimmed in years!). For non donkey folk – donkeys are very good at kicking and can even kick sideways and forwards!
All my patience, clicker training, desensitisation and counter conditioning to pretty much everything – being touched, bending over his feet, voluntarily offering to lift his hoof, having strange scary people touch him and ask him to lift his hoof, like my wonderful trimmer Tanya French. A big thank you to Tanya, I couldn’t have done it without you on Seymour’s team! She listened to me and to Seymour and she trusted that I’d done the training to be safe to bend down and ask Seymour to give her his back hoof (and not kick her head in!) We got it done and I am so thrilled and Seymour is so much more comfortable now, he was very sore on that foot.
His fronts got trimmed too and he just gets better and better every time with them.
It’s been such a long road with him and he is really starting to bloom. He even let me give him a really good scratch and massage all along his back and he relaxed into it and let his head droop all the way down to the ground. That’s probably another first for him, to really let himself enjoy my touch.
I think he’s turned a corner in his trust of people, thanks to Tanya and myself showing him that people can help him feel better. He feels so much better with 3 beautifully trimmed little donkey feet.
Onward to that last tootsie and he’ll be like a brand new donkey!
I had a wonderful time with Seymour tonight. All clicker training was done, dinner was delivered via training and hay nets were hung and there was a lovely warm low lying autumn sun that Seymour was snoozing in, that he was glowing in, his hair was shining like fine expensive silk. Everyone else was busy.
I pulled up a stool to admire him from afar, watch the others and soak up the general ambiance of the last bit of the day and lowering autumnal sun.
But Seymour believes in admiring up close apparently and strolled up to me slowly while I was admiring the others. I felt eyes on me and found Seymour parked right in front of me.
I alternated between admiring the view, (he is pretty handsome) and poking out a finger to see what he thought of it. He let me touch his face, his eyes and even his nose and lips. He even started to play with my fingers and mouthed them with his lips and teeth, that’s a first. He lifted his head and I could literally see his incisors and his tongue and touch them, another first. He must be a mind reader, because the dentist is coming tomorrow!!
I looked away for a while and I was watching Dorothy lying down to give her sore foot a rest, when Seymour stepped forward and was even closer to me. It was nice and companionable and I loved it, because I love him.
I was then engrossed in watching Kaspian and Paddy graze and felt a warmth on my shoulder and realised Seymour had stepped sideways to get closer and was leaning in to me. He then brushed my shoulder with his cheek and neck, another first. I twisted around to see his face and saw a sleepy half closed eye.
I didn’t dare touch him and break the spell and he stood there, leaning lightly against me. It was like a gift, a donkey magic gift! He was showing me he trusted me, that he wanted to be with me and that he felt safe with me. I don’t think there’s a greater gift from an animal that was scared of people and actively disliked people, who would drive them out of his paddock! He wanted to be with me, he chose to be with me and he actively touched and engaged with me. I did nothing and he gave me something, something special.
I admired the sun shining off his fluffy hair that was preparing for the cold weather. It shone like silk and was velvet to my touch. I admired his beautifully trimmed hooves, all neat and tidy, not quite perfect thanks to years of neglect, but a shining example of a lost soul resurrected. I admired his legs and ran my hands down to feel his muscle and bone and the silky hair that had regrown over his previously scab infested legs. I stroked and tickled him in the soft spots between his legs, in his elbow and the soft underbelly, where the hair was so soft and fine and so special, only to be felt by the most trusted of friends.
I looked back into his eyes again, into the depths of those deep brown eyes, into those imperturbable depths, into one of the wisest creatures I have ever met. One of the most communicative and yet secretive and emotional and yet he has the potential to be so distant. But not anymore. Now he is like a magnet to the flame. He wants to connect, to touch, to be with and to breathe together. I let out a lot of deep sighs and let go of a lot of the burdens I was carrying and Seymour was there with me, to witness and to help me release the worry and pressure of the world. Not to carry them of course, but to ease their passing and bear witness.
Seymour helped me instead of me helping him. Yet another gift.
This is Seymour’s story, so far. I’ve known him for about a year and a half, but I don’t know much about Seymour’s life before he came to me. I met Seymour briefly in his paddock with his friend Dorothy and talked with their owner briefly. The 2 donkeys desperately needed help, especially with their long overgrown hooves.
Once I decided to bring Seymour and Dorothy home with me, getting them on the trailer was traumatic for everyone involved, most especially for Seymour and Dorothy. It was hot, humid and we were all sweating and exhausted by the time they were on board the trailer. Rather dramatically, we drove through a big storm and arrived at my place to flooding rain and torrents of water running across the ground.
We walked 2 shaking, sweaty, shocked and now drenched donkeys to their new paddock. They refused to cross any of the rivers created by the storm, so we had to keep backtracking until we could find a safe way forward. Dorothy kept stopping and would not budge and we would change direction to get her going again. Seymour seemed to walk much better than Dorothy, but he was shaking like a leaf, no doubt still in shock.
We finally got them safely into their paddock and made sure they had lots of hay. We showed them where their water was and had to leave them to deal with our flooded home.
Over the days, they seemed to settle. They lay down and rested a lot, which I assume was their way of coping with the shock of the move and how they got there. But they were eating well and really enjoyed the branches and weeds I picked for them.
Seymour and Dorothy sharing some weeds and overgrown herbs from our garden
I already had a plan etched out in my mind and I started to enact it from day one. This was because I had seen how Seymour and Dorothy behaved in their old home, how difficult it was to catch and halter them, particularly Seymour. The owners had to creep up and throw a rope over his neck and when he froze, they forced his halter on.
The plan was that I would arrive, bring nice hay and greens that I had foraged, check their water, pick up manure and leave. I would call out gaily to them “helloo!” every time. I didn’t expect them to do anything for the food and I consistently ignored them and went about my business.
At first, if they were nearby, they would scoot away and wait until I had left before enjoying my food gifts. After a while they started pricking their big gorgeous donkey ears when I called out gaily, but stood cautiously at a distance when I brought their hay and other surprises. It didn’t take long before they were waiting at the gate when they heard me coming, but still scooted away to give me room.
I started to note that Dorothy appeared much less scared than Seymour and it didn’t take her long to creep closer and closer when I brought their hay. Eventually she was brave enough to stay at the gate and even block my entrance in her enthusiasm to get to the food I’d brought. Seymour always stood well back and scurried away when I moved around casually, doing the same thing that I did every day.
Dorothy “talking” excitedly to me when I arrived!
In Dorothy’s enthusiasm for the food, I started to get to know her, was able to hand feed her and eventually touch her. I found out very quickly that she loves scratches and was not shy in coming forward and asking for them. Seymour always stayed back and watched from a distance.
It took some time, but eventually Seymour started coming forward as well and he would carefully take branches from me at a safe distance. With even more time, he started to take food from my hand. But he was very frightened and head shy and any kind of movement on my part would send him scuttling away.
I continued to be predictable, consistent in my routine, always brought them nice things to eat and moved slowly around them.
Eventually I got to a stage where I could hand feed them both and started to train them to touch their nose to my hand in a formal training session. Once I started doing this, they both became very enthusiastic to participate and there was also a fair amount of bickering and resource guarding. I set up a barrier for Protected Contact to keep myself safe, but I could also move them a little further away from each other as well, using the nose target to direct them.
Seymour and Dorothy learning about nose targeting via Positive Reinforcement training
It became apparent very quickly that Seymour was massively head/ear shy. My hand or arm movements caused him to flinch uncontrollably and repeatedly. It was very distressing to watch and at times made it quite hard to train him, as I needed to move and offer a nose target to begin with and had to do it all in slow motion. Now that he was closer, I could see how truly overgrown his hooves were. I could also see that his legs were covered in bleeding sores from repeated fly bites. But the good news was that he wasn’t running away anymore and was quite enthusiastic about training with food.
Seymour flinching
Now the real journey with Seymour could begin.
I started training him to move towards a rope – something that also really frightened him. But my training always allows him to do as much as he feels comfortable. Having that control and the clarity of this type of training, meant it wasn’t long before he then poked his nose into a loop of rope and then later, into a large sized halter. Despite being head and ear shy and also being very afraid of ropes, he made great progress. He did so well that he came to love his halter and he would come when I jingled it.
Slowly but surely the flinching and twitching of his head started to subside. I deliberately didn’t set out to cure him of his fear around his head and ears. Instead, every single time he chose to move towards my hand and arms holding out the halter, he chose to brush against me, including his beautiful big soft ears. Every time that happened, his behaviour got reinforced with food, as well as being able to control how much or how little he chose to offer. His fear was also countered with pleasure from the food.
In contrast to his friend Dorothy, he nearly always remained quiet, wary, even suspicious. I was not allowed to touch him unless it was within a training session and the most interaction he would offer me was to sniff my hand. Yet he made great and consistent progress in his training. Ducking his head in his halter, then adding the lead rope, then using the target to shape forward movement, transferring the walk cue to the lead rope and also walking at liberty. We worked on touch acceptance all over his body, beginning with a soft duster for the harder to reach places and my hand for his neck and body. I shaped him to step up on a mat and then later on a raised pedestal. Then I systematically desensitized (SD) and counter conditioned (CC) him to my looking down at his feet, bending down and then finally touching his legs and feet. I could not even take photos of his feet in those early days. I worked within his comfort zone, below his fear threshold and paired every tiny touch and step with food. Finally, I could start shaping hoof lifts!
It was an extremely long and sometimes frustrating process, with many set backs along the way. First of all I had to SD and CC everything! Myself, my movement, my tools, such as the duster, the look, the smell, the touch of it. Using the duster as a nose target and also methodically touching, stroking, tapping, poking him (simulating what might happen during a trim) and working my way all over his body. I conditioned myself, the duster, my hand and their touch as an appetitive stimulus, it only ever meant good things happening, ever.
I ensured I was able to touch him all over with the duster and also with my hand and that he was comfortable with various kinds of touches. The next step was that I would then touch and pause either with the duster or my hand and click and reinforce any weight shift or movement. I merely paused my touch, asked a question, left a little space for him to insert some kind of behaviour and when he did, I marked it with a click and reinforced it with food. I flipped things around so that I encouraged him to move and offer behaviour that I could reinforce with food.
I shaped his hoof lifts from that first small weight shift. Finally, when he was reliably lifting his hoof, I added the cue. The lightest touch of my hand on his shoulder and then lightly running my hand down his leg, became a cue for him to lift his hoof. There was no pressure, no pinching or squeezing, I asked and he offered. If he wanted to or was scared enough, he could have kicked me in the head, but he didn’t, because I never pressured or caused him discomfort or held on to the hoof.
What he learnt to do as well, was communicate with me and I listened. Whenever I asked too much, he would let me know. From a full on kick out with the back hoof, he graduated down to slowly lifting his back foot to let me know I was asking more than he was ready to give. We went back and forth, we had a conversation and a negotiation. He also offered me a Start Button very early in the training. This is a signal he gives me when he is ready for the next repetition in the training. Starting with a very big nod of his head where his nose nearly touched the ground, he now gives me a barely perceptible nod. It has been immeasurably useful in the trimming process. My trimmer watches for his head nod, which gives her the green light to proceed each time. It’s truly amazing that I can enjoy such a dialogue between Seymour, myself and also others involved in his care. Seymour had his first trim of just the one front hoof, 9 months after his arrival.
I would also spend time sitting in the paddock with both of them on a little stool I sometimes used for training. It was really pleasurable and soothing watching them eat, roll, bicker, snooze and on the rare occasion, even play. There is something about donkeys that is truly good for your heart, I always walked away from my time spent with them, feeling lighter.
Dorothy was quite confident in coming up to me and sniffing me and requesting scratches. Seymour stayed back most of the time, except a few brief times he came up and stood quietly resting companionably next to me, at a distance. Once he came close enough to sniff me very gently and carefully and brush me with his whiskers. Another time I dared to touch him and instead of moving away, he positioned himself where he wanted to be scratched, which was behind his elbow. That was a rare treat indeed for both of us. I glowed afterward with the sheer thrill that he felt safe enough to stand so close to me and let me scratch him.
Seymour carefully and bravely sniffing my leg
Fast forward and Seymour and I recently passed a couple of huge milestones in his training and care. I did enough training to prepare him to have his teeth floated by a mobile dental vet. He needed to feel comfortable being haltered and tied, have strangers moving around and near him and after lots of practice on my agility course, he walked voluntarily into the mobile crush. It turns out he’s quite needle phobic and we were unable to sedate him in the crush. We had to quickly release him as he was panicking and trying to escape and could easily hurt himself. A change of plan meant I set up a training session where I could introduce the vet touching him, introduce the needle and eventually have him sedated in his neck muscle. Finally, he could have his teeth floated and vaccinations given and this happened 15 months after arriving at my place. He reacted very strongly to the vaccination needle as well, even while he was still sedated. But I successfully trained and gave him his follow up booster vaccination injection myself weeks later. I also successfully trained him to lift all 4 hooves willingly and voluntarily and hold them up with enough duration for me to clean them. He’s also offered to lift his hooves for my trimmer and allowed her to trim all 4 hooves. Finally the last back hoof was trimmed 1.5 years after Seymour came to me. He lifted them gently, knowingly and willingly for my trimmer, with me providing a continuous flow of food and encouragement, with a tiny joyful tear of relief in my eye.
I’ve succeeded in training amazing and life changing behaviours that enable Seymour to participate in his own care. But he is still an enigma.
He’s learnt to feel relatively safe, to trust my consistency and predictability, to have control, by being listened to when he ‘talks’ with his subtle behaviour. He’s learnt to gradually de-escalate the way he communicates, because he knows he has a voice. He’s slowly learning to be curious, to be bossy at times to Dorothy and even sometimes initiate interaction with me. He’s learnt that not all people are scary or need to be chased out of his paddock. But he still needs more time to really like people, even me.
It’s hard not to take it personally when he doesn’t want to interact, accept affection or be touched, or even vocalise and speak to me. But I understand that all the things I’ve trained him to do, are of no value to him. He doesn’t understand that he needs his teeth floated, his hooves trimmed regularly or his eyes cleaned. That’s of no value to him.
But he does value all the food I give him to counter his fear and reinforce his participation. I’m a patient person and he’s a donkey who deserves that and more. He’s given me so much, the skills and experience I’ve gained in his training has been life changing for me, as well as him. The pleasure and satisfaction I’ve gained in seeing him transform physically has been hugely rewarding and reinforcing. I’ve also made a very special friend.
I cannot wait to see his transformation mentally and emotionally as well, when he truly believes all people and all things are good and wonderful. That life is wondrous and also, I hope, pain free. When I get to meet the real Seymour waiting quietly, or maybe not so quietly, beneath the layers of literally years worth of fear and pain.
I cannot wait to see when he can choose to interact without suspicion or fear. When he can show his enthusiasm and love for training, without scaring himself. When he feels safe enough to ask for scratches and show me where he wants them, with no fear of the consequences.
When I can show him how much I love him, without scaring him away.
But maybe I’ve already shown him and now all he needs is time to heal and then he can reveal his own heart.
Equines are such sensitive emotional beings. I feel we often underestimate how sensitive they really are, and it can take potent reminders for us to put things in perspective.
My donkeys are travelling through the various stages of transitioning from a life of confusion, fear and pain. They are slowly learning to feel safe, to have a voice and most importantly, to be listened to. They are getting used to a life that is the opposite of what they used to live.
I’ve described before about horses transitioning to R+ and squeezed it into a nutshell. I am experiencing it all over again with my donkeys. Even though I’ve been through it before, I now have more knowledge, empathy and expertise than I did then. I’m learning and evolving all the time, or I hope I am! But it means that I am noticing even more nuance in the learning AND emotional transition my donkeys are experiencing.
Seymour
From being afraid and untrusting and running away, they started running towards me. From flinching and ducking their heads, they target my hand. From turning away from me when I enter their paddock, they are giving me that distinct laser beam stare of animals who like and value their human, including those enormous donkey ears pricked towards me. The most special moment was the day I arrived at their paddock, said my usual high pitched “hello”, they raced up and Dorothy brayed right in my face – it was a joyful and very loud sound!!
But it can be a bumpy ride to the other side.
The first bump that I’m aware of, was when everything was going well; training, scratches, hanging out, cuddles and lots of different food enrichment thanks to me going out foraging for the donkeys. But a strong reminder that my donkeys and I had a long way to go, happened with Seymour. It could very easily seem like nothing, but it was a big deal to Seymour and so it was a big deal to me as well.
I had picked some forage – ornamental ginger that I knew my horses liked and presented it to the donkeys, but they were not very excited about it. Seymour stayed close and kept checking if it was edible and while we were standing together companionably, I noticed a lot of flies biting him on the leg. Biting flies are a big problem with donkeys. I used the bunch of stalks and leaves I was holding to gently brush the flies from his legs. He acted as if I had applied an electric shock and ran away! Silly me thought something natural like some stalks and leaves would be totally fine. What was I thinking?! After that, he was scared and wary of me and did not want to engage and kept his distance from me. His behaviour was even more interesting, as I had been battling very bad fly strike and had been touching, spraying and applying cream to both the donkey’s legs previously. But that treatment had all been done in a structured way with food.
This was a big dent in our relationship. I can’t even call it a withdrawal from our trust account, because quite frankly at this stage, I was working hard to get the whole of humankind out of the red. I suspect that up to that point, my donkeys were still scared of me to an extent and were taking food and training, but their emotional response had not changed yet.
I was very sad to realise I had scared him and broken the very tiny amount of trust I had so carefully built. I realised how truly fragile our relationship was and how much work I had ahead of me.
We continued after this and I feel like I had to re-tread old ground and work hard to make it up to Seymour.
Then just as things were going great, I went away for 4 days. I was co-hosting a multi species animal training workshop and I left my donkeys. My husband took over their feeding and although I know my husband would never intentionally scare my donkeys, just being a man and a stranger may have been enough to scare and unsettle them.
When I arrived home, it seemed like I had been gone weeks or months as far as my donkeys were concerned. They alternated between scared, aggressive, kind of angry/annoyed and super super excited that I was back. The first day when they realised it was me and they heard the rattle of my box clicker and saw the food pouch, they both literally leapt for joy. They ran and ran and bucked and raced to stand at the gate and breathe very heavily in my face.
Dorothy “talking”
But all is not well yet. As the transition from fear to food continues, it brings up old memories and triggers fear and painful memories, which then bubble up. They need to be experienced and processed as no longer a concern, but it can be challenging and scary. They are learning that even though I left, I have returned, and their routine of fun and food continues.
The next step in the transition is to learn they have a voice. Anyone who has been repeatedly shut down, not listened to or forced, needs to learn that their own behaviour can indeed affect outcomes. When I tried to spray a graze on Dorothy’s knee, without permission, without training or preparation and without food, I got kicked. Not a bad kick, but a graze – a warning and a reminder. If I am going to rehab these animals from trauma, I need to actually take their feelings into consideration!
What was I thinking?! I wasn’t and we all make mistakes. I’m lucky that either Dorothy is a bad shot or a really excellent one and she chose to give me a warning and not break my knee cap. I’m always conscious of safety and always do things and stand in places that are the safest for me and have the least fallout for all of us if things go pear shaped. I’m very glad my poor decision contributed to nothing more serious than a grass stain on my pants.
Dorothy gave me a valuable and timely reminder. They are not yet moved over to the bright side. They are still transitioning from the dark side. They still need to learn to trust that humans are reliable and dependable and only mean good things.
The problem is that there is no measure of time on how long this will take. There is a definite process in all of this, but trauma does take as long as it takes to be processed and to be put in the past. It is urgent to get their hooves trimmed, get them off grass, get them exercised, their teeth done and generally be able to look after their everyday needs. But I can only go as fast as their precious and sensitive donkey hearts and minds are able to go, after the many years of life experience they have under their donkey belts.
We did that a few more times with David raising his arm a little higher each time and offering his fist and trying not to bend over, as Paddy finds that super scary. Then the next time, Paddy carefully stretched his neck and reached his nose forward and tried to sniff David’s hand from a distance! I marked/clicked that behaviour and dropped food in his bowl! I suggested David put some food in his fist and next time, offer his fist and if Paddy is close enough, flip it and open it to reveal the food.
