Aging donkey rises to the challenge (we could learn a lesson from this donkey!)

[The Straight Story]

GLOVER — Ignatz the donkey is 33 years old. He is also a hero.

He was not always 33 and he only became a hero last Wednesday afternoon, November 23.
On that day Maria Schumann stepped out of her house on the Bread and Puppet farm in Glover. From the barn behind her parents’ house she heard a commotion.

“I heard noises,” she said Sunday. “It took me a minute to figure out. Chickens were squawking, Ignatz was braying and there was a screaming sound like a human being.”

Elka Schumann, Maria’s mother, recalls looking out her kitchen window and seeing Maria walking toward the barn before breaking into a sudden run.

....

“Then I saw, in the chicken yard, Ignatz with a fox in his mouth, shaking him. And then he threw him and the fox ran into the woods.”

The whole thing was over so quickly, Maria Schumann said, that she didn’t have time to see what part of the fox’s anatomy served as a handle for the donkey.

A lot more on this Donkey at the link:
http://www.bartonchronicle.com/index.php/news/animals/108-agingdonkeyrisestothechallenge

[MadMaddie]

1. Hooray for Ignatz!!

[cali]

2. I know that donkey!

Great story isn't it? And everyone who gets the chance should visit B&P's museum and catch a show in the summer. Amazing place and amazing people.

[handmade34]

3. I miss Vermont!

[The Straight Story]

7. Have never been there, but that Donkey is making me want to go

I want a picture of me with him :)

[Betsy Ross]

4. I watched a horse toss a goat over his head

because it tried to get into the grain bucket. The goat was surprised too.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

5. I never realized that donkeys are used as guard animals...

From the article:

Mr. Schumann originally hoped that Ignatz would protect a different group of animals.
“We hoped he would keep the coyotes out of the sheep, but he didn’t,” he said.
“He bit the ears off the sheep,” Maria Schumann added.
Whether he did that or not, the sheep took him as their leader and would follow behind him. Mr. Schumann recalled going for a walk and looking behind him to find Ignatz and a trailing flock of sheep on his trail.
“He was quite a character — the master of the sheep,” he said.

[The Straight Story]

6. Might have to replace my dogs with a donkey

:)