Ernie (dbL)

Ernie is a BLM burro. He was about 8 years old when I started trimming him. I don’t know how long he’d been in captivity, but it seems like only for a year or so. I just remember handling and trimming him and feeling a sense of deep sadness and resentment. I pictured him with all his herdmates living free in the rugged wilderness, scrambling across bouldery hillsides, looking for their favorite desert scrub brushes to eat, drinking out of fresh creeks under the shade of cottonwood trees, and rolling in the mud and sand to stay cool and fight the flies. Then I picture him getting rounded up and separated from his family and friends and adopted out to live the rest of his life in a small pasture with 2 new horses. I imagined that he missed the company of other burros. I’ve trimmed at liberty in a herd of burros and it’s a fond memory of being surrounded and squished together by a dozen little wiry fur balls that can’t seem to be close enough to each other. I remember feeling safe and happy and needing 10 more hands to spread out the scratches all at the same time. I felt that Ernie was missing that feeling of closeness and connection. Anyway, he didn’t seem to be interested in my understanding and empathy. He only wanted to be left alone by humans. I don’t like leaving a job until every foot gets trimmed. I don’t think he liked that energy either. I managed to get his fronts done in-spite of him continually turning a shoulder and lining up for a cow kick. When I got to the hinds he fought with me a lot to avoid having his hinds handled and he tried to kick me, but when I finally got ahold of a hind he stood still long enough for me to trim a frog and roll the inside of a heel. Then he would kick straight back and knock the rasp or the nippers out of my hands with enough force to send them flying 20 feet away. He did this on both hinds every trim for at least a half a dozen trims. He never once connected with me. and I got a pretty good trim on his hinds. He just scared the hell out of me because I never knew when it was coming. I ended up trusting that he would kick my tools out of my hands but not me. It was still a little unnerving, but it was a trusting relationship. One day after I trimmed him enough times without getting upset with him for his behavior, he let me trim him without kicking. I think I finally had earned Ernie’s respect. Oftentimes a rehab is more than just fixing the hooves.