Cheers for the long-ears

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Jan Rowe of Albion, Maine, who has years of experience with donkeys and horses says training donkeys is very different from horses because of the donkey's placid nature and intelligence. Donkeys won't be intimidated into doing something.

"A donkey looks at a whip and asks, `Are you kidding?"' she says.

Donkeys will become good friends, Rowe says. "They want to be with you. Once you get them to follow you around, you have it made."

Rowe has used some creative training approaches, once actually resorting to a carrot on a stick to get a donkey to take a first step. Her experience training donkeys includes working with two wild burros (small donkeys) that she adopted five years ago through the U. S. Bureau of Land Management's National Wild Horse and Burro Program [(866) 4-MUSTANGS; www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/ . This program removes these animals from public lands when their numbers threaten their habitat and health. Her burros, Shadow and Twilight, were so wild she couldn't get near them when she first brought them to her barn.

"At first I just brushed them with a broom so they could get used to being touched without the threat of my getting close to them," Rowe says. Eventually she was able to get close enough to touch them. She spent that first winter just "leaning on them and loving them"—not a had strategy for any donkey owner—until they followed her everywhere. She spent even more time working with them before attempting to train them for driving.

Well-trained donkeys make excellent introductory riding animals for young children and are beloved saddle mounts for many of their owners. Donkeys and mules don't have the big shoulders horses have, so their saddles have a special tail piece called a crupper to prevent saddle and rider from sliding forward onto the animal's neck. Some donkey owners like Rowe prefer to ride bareback or with a bareback pad. It just takes some knowledge and a lot of balance, she says. "Like learning to ride a bicycle."

Another role that contributes to the donkey's value on the farm is that of "watchdog." Donkey owners report their donkeys running stray dogs and coyotes from the property. Most donkeys cohabit happily with other animals, but because of their protective natures, they should be introduced slowly to new neighbors.

Allan Smith, of Union, Maine, says donkeys are easy to fence in. One strand of electric wire will do the job. "But you want to make sure there's a charge in it," he says. "When I don't charge their fence, they know it and they get out."

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