Liberty is hogging the spotlight for the month of April as he did once before in the Archives Section of this website under Journal for November 2007. In fact this is pretty much the continuing saga and hopefully the end of this scenario. Liberty was transported to the exquisite Evergreen State of Oregon mid April. Day Star Farm was his destination.

This is the donkey/mule training facility that took Liberty’s former teammate in as a reform project. Blue Mountain Endeavor has always had a long and heavy hair coat. In his new home he is now fully body clipped. All they do is add a blanket when the temperatures drop. In North Central Idaho it is to cold for body clipping this early, I am sure he is more comfortable minus his thick four inch winter coat.

At Day Star Farm Dev has learned to respect his handlers and it was evident that his wonderful spirit has remained in tact. He has been transformed into the gentleman we always knew he could be. It was exciting to see him on his new home turf being ridden by Brian. In the show ring he’ll be the one to beat! Look for him on the forested and show trails and eventually I predict he will make a wonderful riding lesson gaited mammoth donkey.

Without any help it has been impossible for me to continue with Liberty’s riding progress and we had come to a standstill or rather a standoff. Liberty had learned to take full advantage of my situation. Last fall when I started saddle training he would simply lie down. At first I pulled the saddle and let him lay there until he decided to get up. This basically taught him that lying down would get him out of whatever it was he didn’t want to do. 10 points for the donkey, 0 points for Kristi!

Here is the report I received from week one at Day Star Farm: “Well this morning they went to saddle Liberty and he so conveniently laid down. So there! Brian walked around and around and he said he was stymied. Lori says “Oh no, we are going to make laying down a most un-enjoyable experience”. So she aggravated his one end and when he would tune her out, she had Brian aggravate the other end. Just plain old picked at him, poked him, pulled his nose flashed him in the face with surprise water hose, on and on. He got testier and testier as the moments went on. This was not the kind of attention he wanted, dang it.
He decided it wasn’t worth it and got up. They mounted him with no trouble, and went on to the drive way. They rode him, even trotted him. Then they took him over the trail area, logs and bridges and what not. He was fine, after his ride he was rushing towards the barn and they are working on that too.
But as a whole, Lori said to tell you he is going to be a phenomenal rail donkey and that his trot is way over the top.”
As a side note I do want to mention that Liberty has been fully checked out by a chiropractor to make sure this was not a pain issue we were dealing with, as I first thought.
Donkeys are incredibly smart and for me having expert help with this situation was exactly what both Liberty and I needed. Liberty will come back to Kingma Farm the first of June and I’m anxiously waiting to ride that incredible trot of his!
Kristi