Someone gave me the name of a donkey trainer, just his name and the name of the village where he lived. This morning with google I managed to trace him and got to talk to him. A lovely man with a lot of life left in him who agreed to visit us next week to have a look at our donkeys and assess them for various training. It’s up to us he said what we want to do with them, and he was willing to give me a hand with their training…. watch this space! What Melody from the donkeywhispererfarm.com/ had managed with me is to have me being able to create a trusting and caring relationship with my donkeys such that we can take them down to the nearest forest and spend a couple of hours walking with them free of leads. What I need to do now is to train Bijou and Bichette to carry children safely and pull a cart.
Martine
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| One of our early riding lessons experimenting with grandchildren, Annie seemed quite happy about it |
Val says My two girls are used to having saddles fitted and giving children rides but I am not sure how safely! I always have the feeling that they could take off at a gallop with a small child clinging on for dear life. I will never forget when we got the donkeys used to saddles, we then needed a "hapless disposable child" to practise with. Not many of those about!
We had some people staying in the gite and as we were walking the girls around with the saddles on the Grandad picked up a little boy and popped him on to the saddle and after that there was never any problem. We have different sized riding hats for the children and in the summer give little rides, always with a parent alongside ready to lift the child off if needed.
I suppose training must continue but I would like to get to the stage of not worrying about a " donkey bolt" and as for walking free without leads, well mine do that often when they escape! but are always happy to come back home.
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| I love this photo of friends Betrand Dezes and Caroline Kirk who three years ago were helping with donkey training. On a walk Lucy got stung by a wasp and galloped off with her saddle round her tummy. On returning home Betrand had to go to bed with tranquillisers he told me ! whilst Caroline took it all in her stride. |
