Christine’s two mini donkeys, Percival (L) and Sebastian (R), outSMARTed her....almost!

Christine shared this experience with her donkeys’ veterinarian.  Therefore, it is comically vet approved! 

“‘Twas the night before Christmas (well, late afternoon),” began Christine, “and day one of dispensing four football size pills to Percival, one of my two mini donkeys. The instructions read: 'Add to grain.  If necessary, crush, add liquid, put in syringe and plunge orally.'  

I wanted to avoid the ‘plunge’ method, so luckily Percival ate the first pill along with his vitamin pills.

On Christmas morning, he ate them again. So easy!

On Christmas night, Percival realized his vitamins/medicine combo tastes GROSS and he becomes a reluctant recipient, refusing it until I sprinkle my horse’s supplement over them. All gone!

The next day, both methods fail. So I tried just the supplement powder. Success! Crunching. This is great! Then I see four rejected pills in his feed dish.  

I dash to the fridge, chop up an apple, and tuck a pill into each bite-sized treat with a few decoys in the mix.  'Always offer a non-pill stuffed treat first.’ Voila! So easy.

The next day? We’re out of apples! Carrots to the rescue! Same M.O.: cut, core, insert the pill; bait and switch, feed an unloaded carrot and then a loaded one. Success!

The next day. Carrots eaten. Pills spit out.

All is not lost, since the huge pill size is a boon. I retrieved and re-dispensed them. Percival had other ideas about THAT! He began carrot-cotting. (Donkeyism for boycotting carrots.)

Equines swoon over sweets! So I invent camou-carrots (camouflage carrots) doused in molasses.

NO-oooooo! Percival wouldn’t consider the candy-coated carrots.

On the bright side, all the trips from the barn to our house and back helped me reach my goal of 10,000 steps a day! 

Now what? I did not want to administer the purr-scribed ‘crush and plunge method’. Think. THINK. THINK.

A new idea!  Bread with jam! It worked! One bite at a time, times four, with the introductory decoy bite. Twice a day. Do the math. Percival did. Pills rejected again.

Is the pill bottle bottomless? The pills appeared to be ‘going forth and multiplying’.

I tried a $pendy natural bread, (apparently befitting Percival’s palette), a flaxseed bread, (acceptable and more affordable), blackberry and strawberry jams, honey (not acceptable), grape jelly (too bland), and apricot preserves (so-so).  I tried little bites, big bites, and unloaded bites.

I, ‘She, Who Only Has A Kitchen Because It Came With The House’, hate to cook. Cutting apples, carrots, and spreading stuff on bread is like feeding a preschooler. My husband is now  jealous of the donkeys’ diet.

Brainstorm: What about the leftover, sweet-junkie store bought cake treat from our grandson’s visit? They’re made for this! I excitedly added the ‘little extra something’ to the stale treat for the medicinal crunch.

Apparently donkeys know not to eat junk food - it was another no go.

I hand fed our other donkey, Sebastian, almonds, as a decoy. Percival approached to see what he was missing. Surely if Sebastian is happily munching and crunching almonds, the pill coast must be clear. 
  
Are these pills magical? They fight infection and have given Percival ‘Super Donkey Powers’!  He can now detect pills like an eagle soaring at 5,000 feet can spot a mouse. Percival curls his upper lip and his ears go wonky at the first scent of ‘eau de meds’, demonstrating his disgust. And, once the pills begin crunching in his mouth, he does the infamous ‘hock-tooey’ and spits them out while giving, ‘The I told you so!’ look to Sebastian (while Sebastian happily crunches almonds).

It was time to think outside the refrigerator. What about peanut butter?

Not only does the crunchy peanut butter hide the dreaded sound of crunching pills, but pills embedded in the sticky combination are harder to spit out. (Not impossible. Just more difficult.) 

After dispensing the last pill from the bottomless bottle, a beautiful Hallelujah Chorus was heard far and wide emanating out from our barn into the night!

My new donkey problem? Percival has to join ‘Peanut Butter Eaters Anonymous!’

DISCLAIMER:  No grandchildren were harmed in the making of this epic. Despite the ingredients in the colorful cake treat, our grandson is still alive and well.”

“Sebastian is a greige Jerusalem donkey,” said Christine, “so-called because he has a dark dorsal stripe and another one across his shoulder forming a cross. They are associated with the donkey, who carried Mary to Bethlehem and the donkey, who carried Jesus to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

Percival and Sebastian come from a long line of donkeys, who have assisted humans for over 5,000 years! Their family is huge, 40 million worldwide, who are used in underdeveloped countries as pack animals.  They pack a lot of power and personality into their little bodies!  Our world is a better place thanks to them.”

It’s no joke! A male donkey, or an ass, is called a jack and a female is a jenny. When a jack donkey mates with a horse, they produce a mule, which are called a hinny. Oh! The jokes that come to mind!

Dolly, a champion Pekingese, says, “I don’t like taking medicine, but I love all the different treats my mother tries hiding them in.”

I must say this article also rings true for our cats . . . and my husband!  Cats don’t eat peanut butter, so we use hamburger, but it is a good thing Mr. Angel Scribe likes peanut butter!

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Mary Ellen's Silver Persians swam their way into readers and viewer's hearts! They have appeared in International magazines and newspapers around the world. (France, England, Canada, China, Germany, USA, etc.)

Also, several National and International TV shows featured the swimming felines teaching pet-water-safety. And their furry faces appeared on a line of shirts.