Liberty-The Final Installment

There is an answer; somehow someway I repeat there is always an answer. Sometimes finding the answer happens by pure luck with a stoke of genius. This time the answer came to us as a result of both.

Going back to the beginning Kingma Farm was blessed with a mammoth donkey named Dev that needed some guidance. We put this mammoth donkey into driving training and after a rocky start he became an awesome driving boy. Later we teamed him with a second mammoth donkey, Liberty and at first it looked like they were going to be a hit. Over the course of three years things went so far downhill that it was no longer possible to drive Dev as a single or in a team. Riding him also became an impossible feat. Eleven months ago he moved on to Day Star Farm in Oregon. They are well known for their talents of reforming longears who have gone astray and have been successfully riding him.

The story continues with Liberty’s tale. This mammoth donkey had a nice driving start as a single and as mentioned earlier was teamed with Dev. He developed some bad habits and needed some extra single driving and riding experience. This spring he joined Dev at Day Star Farm. While there both animals were treated for selenium deficiency and were on the come back trail. After 93 days at Day Star Liberty was ready to come home. We all decided it would be a good idea to ride and drive him there in his own equipment before returning to Idaho.

We tacked up in my favorite synthetic harness and headed out. All the time Lori was telling me how wonderful this big guy is to drive and how proud we are going to be. Lori and I went down the road a few times before she showed me her favorite spot to ride and drive. We then proceeded into a marvelous stand of huge trees. Like magic the temperature immediately dropped a good 10 to 15 degrees. With enough spacing between the trees one could stay on a well used trail, weave thru the trees or drive diagonally. The ancient orchard was a perfect arena to play in on a hot summer’s day under a canopy of cool shade.

While at the lines Lori was guiding me into unknown areas of reinsmanship. She taught me ways to help Liberty drive more supported. Lori showed me how to frame him up. It was a much needed learning experience.

As I was driving I started to notice Liberty getting very heavy in my hands. He was refusing cues to gee, haw and whoa. At first we thought it was the difference in the cart and shafts. Then Lori instinctively knew that something was going very wrong. Liberty was refusing to stop and plowing thru my hands. It was as if I had Dev between the lines once again. I stepped out of the cart to check adjustments when Lori asked me to slide my hand under the spider on his hip. That part of the harness was so tight the sharp edges were gouging into his hip bones putting Liberty into excruciating pain. No wonder he did not want to stop or turn, the harness was severely hurting him. Back to the barn we immediately drove to strip the harness off.

Finally we had the puzzle totally put together. The selenium deficiency was a contributing factor to both boys’ muscle tone and the painful harness is what put Dev into fight mode every time it was used. That pain factor or even the thoughts of it eventually transitioned into everything I did with him including riding and ground work. Since the harness was bio it was a favorite and I used it a lot. I could see, without question, that Liberty was headed down that same pathway that Dev had traveled. Without driving at the training facility in exactly what we use at home we would have never discovered this flaw in the harness or have known what caused Dev to go off the deep end. The BioThane harness was the common denominator and the end result would have been the same for any mammoth donkey wearing that particular piece of equipment. Thank goodness Lori’s sharp eye caught it. Now she has the tools and the knowledge to guide Dev back into a successful driving career. The mystery has been 100% completely solved! We now know what made a perfectly sane driving animal go completely off his rocker every time he was harnessed and later saddled.

After a rest we reharnessed Liberty in his all leather draft harness and went out again. It took a while for him to realize that when he went to stop there would be no pain. You could actually see the butt muscles tighten as he expected the spider to dig into his pronounced hip bones. After 45 minutes of relaxed driving in the coolness of the orchard he was responding lightly to all commands. We had him back! Rethinking the times Dev drove the worst were times in the bio harness we even checked photos to prove it.

The end result of all this is that Liberty and Dev’s future as successful driving animals is back on track thanks to the great folks at Day Star Farm in Creswell, Oregon.

Kristi Kingma
www.teamdonk.org