A Proud Enabler

A few weeks ago, I got a call from my friend Dave.  He'd stumbled on a donkey who was in a very bad spot and he was thinking about going to get him.  He knew the donkey had badly neglected feet and was considered "feral" and....maybe he was hoping I'd talk him out of it.  I'm not sure. 

Some crazy lady had bought this donkey two years ago and put him in her round pen and he had been there, untouched, alone, with absolutely no shelter ever since.  She did at least throw some hay to him once a day (most days anyway) so at least he didn't starve. 

Being the proud enabler that I am, I told Dave that, of course, he should get the donkey!  As always, it wasn't that simple because the donkey was 4 hours away and couldn't be touched and the owner was crazy.....Things got complicated.  I got a couple more calls where I provided more enabling and time went by and we weren't sure what would happen and then - boom, here's the donkey! 

He showed up on Friday and the poor guy is just terrified of humans.  Dave has spent the past couple of days just quietly hanging out with him and, this morning, they finally made contact.  I was scheduled to go over and work on feet anyway and I also planned to spend time with the new guy.  He really is a very sweet, beautiful donkey without a mean bone anywhere.  He is just soooo scared.

Moving slow and offering lots of treats we were able to handle him a bit and show him that not all humans are bad.  We didn't want to stress him out, but we also wanted to try to clean his feet up at least a little so he could walk better and not be in pain.  I slipped him a bit of Dormosedan Gel, which is a sedative.  It works really well in cases like this if it is dosed and administered properly and carefully.  At a low dose, it takes the edge off and gives relaxation without making the donkey truly woozy.  If you work slow and careful, the donkey will remember what happened, but without the haze of fear.  It is a good way to start off if you can't take the time to fully earn trust first. 

With the help of a lot of treats, some good drugs, much sweet talk, and some massage, he let me pick up all of his feet and give them what may be his first ever trim.  I also got a good look at all his other parts and he does still have all of them despite being billed as a gelding.  This guy (who has never even been given a name - I think it is going to be Jessie, but that is not a 100% yet) has some minor surgery in his near future to fix that little problem.  Aside from that, he is a very well built, sturdy young donkey.  I guess his age to be about 4 1/2 -5.

Unfortunately, I don't have many "before" photos of his feet because I am having camera issues again and many of the before pics turned out black.  I did get a few taken mid-trim.  This is the bottom of a foot after 4-5 inches have already been cut off the toe. 

You can see where one of the side walls has begun to curl under and fold over the sole.

The whole foot is falling over sideways and, if left to continue like this, his entire hoof would have fallen over on its side.  Over time, this causes major damage to all the bones and ligaments of the leg. 

I trimmed the foot level to coffin bone inside the hoof and, within a couple of weeks this will straighten out and look level with the ground as well.  His leg and hoof need time to adjust to a normal stride.

Bad pic, but I hope you can see how much of this needs to come off.

Getting there...

 There are nice feet hiding under all that mess.

I probably could have taken another 1/2 inch off this toe, but this foot was one of the longest and I took about 6 inches off it.  It will need time to adjust and I didn't want to push our luck today.

A few more trims and these will be nice feet.

A few more weeks and this will be a very, very nice, sweet donkey and I am very happy to be an enabler for this.  This is what matters.