Meet Kahlua

Well, we’ve adopted a burro!

Or, well, technically, my parents adopted the burro.

But my mother is excited because she volunteered for me to halter break Kahlua and teach her to have her feet done.

Yes, uh…. well, thanks, mom lol.

She was just a rockstar for the trip, and hasn’t yet made a peep, but she has a very kind face, and I think we’re all in love with how much her ears flop when she shakes her head lol. Either way, it was an amusing situation all around. We left Whisper in the arena while we opened the pen panels to let her in so that she have as low-stress an unloading situation as possible. Amber could see Kahlua through her door, and proceeded to give “what the Fs” while we were letting her settle. Amber has totally seen wild burros before, and they’ve often come within 2 feet her previous stall. So her OMG-ness was pretty funny.

Until she started throwing a temper tantrum in her run and bucking and charging in and out of her covered stalls because god forbid the trailer be hooked up and moving because DEAR LORD WE WILL TAKE HER HORRIBLE PLACES lolololol. So after she wouldn’t calm down, she got tied in her stall. Then she started calling for Whisper, because maybe we wouldn’t take her, but what if we were here to take Whisper to the unknown abyss?! Whisper always answers her back. Except this time. Because Whisper – sweet, somehow incredibly intuitive Whisper – knew that this was a new addition, and a new addition to her side of the barn at that. And when Whisper wouldn’t answer and Amber couldn’t see her, she was very pissed. Pawing tantrum ensued. Tie time extended indefinitely lol.

About fifteen or twenty minutes after we’d closed the panels and let Kahlua settle, we brought Whisper up. Amber nickered a lot (was denied again because Whisper couldn’t care less about her now) and Whisper just went straight outside. Whisper had absolutely no issue with Kahlua being a burro. She was much hotter than we are used to seeing her, but this was definitely an inquisitiveness versus scared. After about a minute with no fusses, we let Whisper go, and fed her and Kahlua. Kahlua wouldn’t come to the fence to sniff noses, but it was obvious she liked Whisper. She hadn’t had any friends in her BLM pen, either, so it looked like a perfect situation for the two to bond. And after every bite of food Whisper would turn her head to look at Kahlua. Amber was very mad when Whisper wouldn’t answer her – god forbid Whisper get another friend other than Amber despite how rude Amber is to her – and then we were feeding them and not her and more pawing ensued. She was ignored by all of us lol.

Pretty soon we went in for dinner, and watched as Whisper and Kahlua ate by each other. Whisper was enchanted from the start, and Kahlua will often stand by her as well, so our hope for them to bond looks like it’s working great! Amber was still tied for another half hour after that, and by then she was unhappy but standing still, and seemed to be over herself and ready for food.

Thankfully, it was pretty uneventful! We’re going to wait a bit before trying to gentle her. I want her to get comfortable in our barn’s routine before working with her too much. I’ve never worked with a burro let alone a wild one, so this will be super interesting. Perhaps I should chronicle it? lol

So far she’s cautiously inquisitive – she checked out the salt block, the water bucket, but didn’t drink, nibbled on a little hay, and then just stared and stared at the desert. She doesn’t get too upset by new things; she just seems to watch with laser focus, her ears floppy radars that go back and forth, then decides it’s fine. Which is so awesome because it was exactly what we were hoping. Whisper already seems calmer, happier, and doesn’t want to be turned out in the arena anymore! lol. She wants to be by Kahlua.

We know she’s from a burro herd in Mina, Nevada, and was at the BLM for about a year or 2 through no fault of her own. Most people just wanted younger ones, but that worked out perfectly for us. She’s 6, and what is known as a “Jerusalem donkey” because of the shoulder stripe that “crosses” the dorsal stripe. Other than that there’s really not too much to tell – or at least not much more that I know since I didn’t go to adopt her haha. She’s still very fuzzy, which is fine for the super weird spring weather we’re getting here. She’s shedding though, so hopefully once we get our actual summer weather she won’t be too hot.

She seems to be settling well so far, and one of the tips was to sit in her stall and read to her. So my mom has been reading to her, and I’m thinking tonight I’ll pull out one of my books and read to her as well.