The Story of #6936 & #6937
By Barbara Grozycki,
New Mexico Wild Burro Adopter
When my husband Tom and I moved from the big city urban life in Houston, Texas (and the demands of our jobs), to the small city rural life in Silver City, New Mexico (and time on our hands), we both knew we would one day have animals. Oh, sure, we have always had the diminutive animal: dogs, cats, birds. We even had a pet rat once whose name was Marilyn Monroe. She was just as beautiful as her namesake was, too.
However, Silver City is the west. It’s different here. Primarily because we have so much room, more space, wide-open vistas and mountains. Houston can be great, but there are no mountains there. Here, our own 100 acres has a section that borders the Gila Forest, and we like to hike around on it, so the natural flow of communication between Tom and me over a whole year’s time, moved from owning the diminutive pet to owning an equine as a pack animal.
With some honest measure of uncertainty, we built a hay shed first. Satisfied and with a bit more confidence, we built a barn next to the hay shed. We bought corral panels and put them up, took them down, reconfigured them, put them back up and then reconfigured them three more times before we were satisfied. Meanwhile, we were talking to our neighbors with horses and to our neighbors with miniature donkeys. We also talked to all of our local farm and ranch feed and supply personnel. We checked out library books on equines, purchased horse magazines, and read For Sale sections of all of our local newspapers.
Then, one day online, I went to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro program and bingo! We liked what we saw. Yes, we could certainly have remained right here in our own city and purchased an equine. We could have adopted one from any of a number of rescue groups, and heck, we even had e-mails from people who wanted to give us animals: all kinds of animals. The BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program is one that both my husband and I admired, especially after we read more and more about its philosophy and its concern for the country’s wild horses and burros still in existence and still symbolic of our Western Heritage.
In October 2003, we borrowed our neighbor’s two horse trailer, drove to Arizona, bid on and adopted two very young wild gelded jacks: #6936 and 6937.
Number 6936 became Donkey Xote, and number 6937 become Lagniappe. Xote is just a good-natured animal, rarely hesitant, eager to please, and always curious. I’m not sure about windmills (he is named after Don Quixote), but he investigates everything else he comes into contact with. The word Lagniappe is Cajun French for “a little something extra,” and although we were going to adopt only one animal, #6937 was the last guy in the corral unadopted. We bid on him, too, and got our “little something extra.” He’s a little shy, scared, and uncertain. He has to be convinced before he proceeds, but he’s learning. Xote just trusts intuitively: Lagniappe is learning to trust even though it seems to go against his nature.
Five months ago, we had no routine beyond spending massive amounts of time with them and building trust. Now, they have routines. Every single morning I halter them, let them out of the barn and into their corral, complete my barn maintenance, and feed them. After we all eat, I lead them out and tie them off. Since they are not totally tame, I still use either a chin chain on their halter or a Be-Nice halter every time I take them beyond their corral. They have come to associate the halter with walk time, so just hearing the clank makes both donkeys as happy as Pavlov’s dogs. Once I’ve tied them, I groom them with separate brushes because Xote is wooly and Lagniappe is sleek of hair. I wash their eyes, nose, and muzzles with warm water, and try hard to keep them from eating their sponges. Tom and I clean their hooves every day and trim excess frog growth when necessary. They pick up their hooves with a touch from us and the command, FOOT.
For the last several weeks, we’ve been leading them around the property for 45 minutes to one hour. We practice WHOA for stop, BACK for back-up, GEE, for turn right, LISTO for walk. We’ve yet to try a left turn, but we have been adding our coats to their backs during our walks so they get used to what that feels like. One day we will have packs on their backs instead of our coats, but that time is still in the future. The last thing Tom and I do each day is take off their halters, bring them back into the barn, and feed them.
It may not sound like much for some people, but to take two wild animals from their usual surroundings and habitat and place them with humans is a tough assignment for both animal and human. All of us have come a long way and we still have so much more to do. Tom and I sometimes talk about what we would do differently if we had it all to do again, and we both agree that we’d do the same things we did several months ago. We still look forward to early mornings with the boys, we still find ourselves eager for our walks, and we are still in love with our two adopted wild burros. We did the right thing!
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