Residents of 

Forever Home Donkey Rescue

As rescues, we know all of our animals have stories. Here is some of the information we have on them. There is much more they could tell us, if only we could understand.

New Arrivals

HANNA  2004:  Hanna was adopted from BLM in 2007 as an only donkey.  She was not trained in anyway, although the family took good care of her & she followed them around enjoying attention.  Recently the family got a new dog, that chased Hanna thru a fence, while they were at work.  After that she wouldn't have anything to do with any of them especially the man who was her special friend.  She probably thought he was her leader, & let her down by allowing the dog to hurt her, so no longer trusted him.  

We offered to take her & except for the nipping to get your attention she's well behaved & loves being around people.  Once we work on haltering & other manners she will be ready to go to a new home. 

KATIE 2002:  Katie had been given to a feed store as an attraction in a small petting zoo.  She was overweight when she got there, & being kept in a small pen with unlimited hay wasn’t a good situation.  A customer wanted to get her out of there, but was not in position to take her, & got in touch with us.  The owner offered to give Katie to the woman after the woman told him how sick she was going to get if she didn’t lose the weight.  What she didn’t tell him was, Katie was going to a sanctuary  rather than home with her.  She is very sweet & loves people, & will make someone a wonderful companion.

GUS  1997:   In November 2007 we hauled Gus from a ranch over by Arivaca, where he had become a nuisance.  I knew of a woman that wanted a companion for her donkey Chili.  So we delivered Gus, but a few months later the owner had health problems & we not only took Gus back, but Chili came with him. 

Once they were here we found out that Gus would rather hang with the mules & horse than donkeys.  We found a wonderful home for Chili & at the Open House in 2008, Gus & a visitor developed a relationship thru the fence. The man had a horse than needed a companion, so Gus headed for a new home again. 

Recently Gus' owner has developed some serious health problems & he asked to return Gus.  So Gus thru no fault of his own is now looking for another home.  Hopefully when he finds one, this time it will be permanent.

PALADIN  2007:    I was called by a woman with a real problem.  About 17 months earlier someone had given her a intact jack as a companion for her jenny Lupe.  Twelve months after his arrival, Lupe had a little baby jack.  The woman knew she had a problem, & thought the jenny was probably pregnant again..........!!  She wanted to rehome the big jack & get the little jack gelded & keep him.  But gelding had become so expensive, she couldn't afford it.  She had some ropers that were interested in taking the big jack, which of course is unacceptable.  Rather than have that happen, we said we would take him & find a good home. 

Longhopes Donkey Shelter in Colorado has received a grant to help people geld or euthanize that otherwise couldn't afford it. I got in touch with Kathy Dean the founder, & she said they would pay for getting both jacks gelded. 

The jack has been unhandled, so we took 4 other helpers with us to get him in the trailer.  Imagine our surprise when with some coaching, he actually hopped in the trailer.  He obviously didn't know he already had a date with the vet, for the next day to be gelded.  The vet was prepared with a dart gun, if we needed it.  But he turned out to be very mellow for such a young donkey.  

He will stay in a pen for about a month, just to make sure he can no longer be a daddy.  I will work with him while he's in the pen & hopefully he'll be ready for a new home soon.  He came with no name, so I named him Paladin.   

We will also make arrangements to get the little guy gelded.  He's about 5 months old & still with his mom, which will be less stressful than waiting until he is older. 

QUILLA (Kela)  1992 ?  Nine years ago a woman got Quilla, a roping donkey as a companion for her horse.  Over the years he was very well fed & had a good home, although his feet weren't trimmed.  A couple of years ago the horse died & he had been alone although he did have a goat for companionship.  The years of rich diet have not only caused him to be overweight, but he walks like he is chronically foundered.  His owner wasn't in a position to get him another equine friend, & decided we could give him a better long term home with lots of equine friends.  We will work on getting the extra weight off him, & trim his feet on a regular basis, which should make him much more comfortable long term.  The owner said he never brayed, as soon as he got here he started braying at all the donkeys on a regular basis.  Guess he didn't have anyone that talked his language before.   

DAISY DOB 1985  Daisy was being used for roping practice, until she literally sat down in the arena & gave birth to a foal.   She had also been shot in the shoulder, & still has shrapnel in her shoulder that erupts into an abscess about once a year.  A wonderful couple took her & Junior Surprise out of the horrible situation they were in, & gave them a great home.  Fast forward 16 years, & because of health problems the couple needed to move closer to family & started looking for homes for the donkeys &  2 mules.  A place was found for the donkeys, but unfortunately Junior slipped & tore the tendons & ligaments in his stifle area, & had to be euthanized.  We had room for one, so Daisy came to us.  She is a very sweet girl,  very cooperative & easy to work with.  She unfortunately has extremely long hair & plenty of it.  We will body clip her, so she will be more comfortable in the desert summer heat. 

FRIJOLITA:  DOB 2001:

Frijolita (Little Bean) was taken off the range by BLM in 2001 as a 6 month old.  She & another baby girl were adopted by a couple that already had 2 grown jennies, & gave them a wonderful home.  A few years later Margarita coliced & Frijolita was very lonely.  We had a young jenny, Twinkie & she went to this home to be a friend of Frijolita.  After a few months, the couple had some health problems & thought it would be a good idea to start thinking about downsizing.  A good home for 2 donkeys showed up, but we only had one available.  We hauled Chili, picked up Twinkie, aka, Galleta Dulce on the way & delivered them to their new home.  Then we went back & picked up Frijolita, so she could come out here where there are lots of donkeys for her to find a new friend, hopefully.  She has neurological problem with her back legs called stringhalt.  She had it when she was adopted, & although she sometimes raises her legs in a jerky fashion, it isn't painful.  She also has ridging on her front feet, although she has never been foundered.  We are hoping that by being out here with lots of room to roam on rough land, maybe her feet will improve.  Time will tell. 

Regulars

Pepsi:

We were told about Pepsi at the vet clinic. The woman needed to find a home for him fairly quickly. Pepsi has a reoccurrence of a sarcoid right under his eye.  He had one  in 2007& his owner treated it successfully at that time with xxTerra .   Since he had health problems, besides being overweight, he fit into our goal of taking in the ones that are unadoptable.  We’ll work on getting his feet in shape, & also his little body. In the future with some feet trimming, dieting & hopefully getting rid of the sarcoid, he should be very adoptable. In the meantime we will enjoy having him here.

BLACKJACK: 1986?

We bought BlackJack in 1997, as a 10 year old intact jack. He was going to slaughter if we didn’t buy him for $50. His feet had not been trimmed & were slippered. He almost bled to death when he was gelded, because of our lack of knowledge about the differences between horses & donkeys. Unfortunately many veterinarians have not worked with donkeys & aren’t aware, that donkeys are heavier bleeders than horses, & this needs to be taken into consideration when performing surgery. He is the alpha equine on the property, & has the responsibility of checking all trailers that come on the property to see if it’s a new friend, or even better has something to eat in it. He is insulin resistant, so his diet is low sugar & starch. He is doing very well, without medication.

BUDDY BRAT: 4/10/95

Buddy is not a true rescue, we bought him as a companion for BlackJack, before we ever thought of doing rescue. He came from a good home, & came with no bad habits, except a great love of food & a very sharp mind that loves to get into trouble. He thinks fly masks are toys & we spend a lot of time in the fly season looking for masks that have been used as toys & discarded somewhere on the property. Buddy came to us with a weight problem & over the years has also developed insulin resistance. He is still overweight & is on an ongoing diet.

BUSTER BROWN: 1990

Buster was given to us after we advertised for free donkeys. A man had gotten Buster for his grandkids & they were afraid of him. He had been in a BLM herd in the Kingman area, captured December 19, 1990 as a 6 month old & put up for adoption. Over the years, he had passed thru many hands & had become suspicious of people. The day we hauled him home in a horse trailer, he was so traumatized by the time we got home, he had rubbed his tail raw & the floor of the trailer was wet from him sweating. He has become more trusting, but still is suspicious of change in his daily routine.

CISCO II: 1990?

We brought Cisco home the same day with Buster. He had been used as a roping donkey, & probably would no longer run to be roped. He had no interest in his surroundings or what was going on around him. This shutting down is a way of trying to control their lives in the only way left to them, by not getting involved. He also had summer sores, which are caused by habromena larvae under his eyes & on other areas of his body. These areas itch intensely, to the point where he self mutilated, by biting, scratching, or rubbing. Over a period of 3 years for about 7 months each year, he had to be treated daily, sometimes hourly. He still has to be watched during fly season, for new outbreaks.

PEPPER: < 1976?

Pepper had been used as a roping donkey, & fed alfalfa hay for at least 15 years. He was very sway backed, had what is called a hay belly, had been foundered (laminitis) & his feet were in poor shape. He was also very lethargic, & had longer hair than normal. It took another episode of laminitis for us to find out that he was not only insulin resistant, but also has Cushing's disease, caused by a tumor on his pituitary gland. He receives daily medication, his hooves are trimmed every 5 weeks & he is probably in better shape than he’s been in, for many years.

RUSTY: (mule) 1979?

Rusty came from a good home he had for 10 years. For two of those years he took a little boy to school each day. There was a round pen by the school where Rusty & the brother’s horse spent the day. His owner could no longer keep him due to personal circumstances, but she wanted to make sure he didn’t go into the unknown by being sold to strangers that might not appreciate his wonderful personality & gentle nature. She came out to visit & approved our place as a new home for Rusty. He slipped into the herd & routine, like he had always been here & really is a “Cadillac Mule” as his owner called him. But, when it’s all said & done, he is a mule & does have his “mule” moments.

SHA’BA: < 1966?

Sha’ba (An Arabic word of respect for an old man) is around 40 years old. He has had a broken fetlock, is blind in one eye, has had a hole thru his nose that lines up with scars on his mouth. We assume a cord, chain or something was ran thru the hole to lead him or maybe even tie him up. He had also shut down mentally, like Cisco. Someone in his life had cut his ears off. His teeth are worn off to the gums, & he was very thin when we got him. He had been in with other donkeys, so he probably had a hard time getting anything to eat. He was part of a 5 donkey package deal, & we were asked to take him, since he couldn’t be resold or used for anything. It is surprising how trusting he has become, considering the stories he could tell.

LUCY: +/- 1989?

Lucy was going to be put down because her feet were very bad & she was wild. She had a nasal discharge when we picked her up, & after treating it, we found a home for her & her daughter. After a few months the discharge was only getting worse & she had lost a lot of weight. We brought her back to the sanctuary & hauled her to the Equine Clinic at Gilbert for evaluation. She was diagnosed with guttural pouch disease, which is treated with surgery. Her owner couldn’t afford the expense, so we took her back permanently & had the surgery done. Her feet are still a work in progress, the farrier says it will probably take a couple of years of trimming for them to be as good as they will ever be. Buster loves her & wherever she goes he is right at her side. I don’t know if he ever had anyone he loved before, but they will never be separated.

JACK: (mule) 5/5/82

About a month after we got Shiloh the same man called & said he had an old mule he wanted to give us, otherwise he was going to shoot him. Jack had recently gone blind in one eye, was very spooky, & couldn’t be trusted on trails, so he had no value. He has finally decided we aren’t so bad after all. His teeth were really bad, & he couldn’t chew hay. We had an equine dentist work on his teeth, & it took a few months for the calcium deposits that were keeping his jaw from free movement to dissolve, but he now chews with great enthusiasm. He has gained weight & is a special boy, even if he isn’t really a donkey.

CHEYENNE, LYNN, & JUSTIN:  

These miniatures came to visit, in Dec 2006 to hopefully lose some weight.  They had been in with a lot of horses, & obviously been eating more than their fair share of the hay being thrown in the pen.  I'm not sure this is a good place to lose weight, most of ours are a little pudgy, but at least we have some control over what they eat.  Their "Mom" has seen them & thinks they look much better, although they have a ways to go.  We've all decided they are better off staying here than going back into a situation where their food intake might not be closely monitored.  Everyone that comes to visit the donkeys love to see them, especially small children.  They've learned to "work the people" for treats, so we're in no hurry for them to leave.   

CHESTER: 2001

Chester was a roping donkey in with a herd of horses & probably got kicked in the elbow causing lameness.  He was not diagnosed or treated at the time.  After about 6 months his owner figured out he wasn't getting any better & called us.  We picked him up, brought him to the sanctuary & although he had swelling & limped rather badly at times, he settled in & interacted with the herd.  A couple of months after he got here he developed an open abscess on his leg.  We took him to the Equine Centre in Gilbert for surgery to remove infection & bony growth to the elbow  joint.  He has been on antibiotics since November 2007, to get rid of any infection & although he is doing well, these types of joint infections are almost impossible to get rid of.  We will do whatever we can to have a good outcome for him, long term. 

We named him Chester after Dennis Weaver's role in the TV Western, Gunsmoke.  Chester in the show was Marshall Dillon's sidekick, & walked with a limp.  

JENNY:  1999  

Jenny is the first mammoth donkey we've had here.  A woman north of Phoenix called, & she was at the end of her rope with trying to help Jenny.  She had been working on Jenny's feet for a year & said she had treated over 50 abscesses in that time.  She was to the point of thinking about euthanasia.  We took Jenny sight unseen, & her feet were really bad, lots of open cracks & bleeding from the coronary band above the hoof.  But she hadn't given up, although when she came here in May 2007, she was laying down over 23 hours a day. Her egg bar shoes were pulled & we started soaking her feet, & having her trimmed on a regular basis.  X-rays showed damage to the coffin bone on both front feet, from chronic founder.  As soon as she could stand for a little while, we started letting her out of her pen to roam as much as she could to improve circulation in her feet. 

She's made a lot of progress in the last year.  She doesn't lay down anymore, & has even trotted a few times, although she really prefers the slow & easy meandering lifestyle.  Her feet have almost grown out completely, but are still deformed, both internally & externally, & will need regular trimming.  Unfortunately she probably will never be sound enough to be ridden or pull a cart, so she will stay in sanctuary for the rest of her life