Me and JuJu have been having issues when we go for our walk. Almost once every walk she would run from me.... pulling the rope so hard that if I didn't let go I was going to be dragged like a tin can on the back of a Just Married get away car. It seemed to me that she would do this randomly, at various places and unexpected times... sometimes cause she didn't want the walk to end and decided to get away from the gate, another time when she heard a loud noise and ran out in front of me to protect me, then sometimes just going downhill in general would set her off into a running frenzy. But the real clencher was when she ran onto a neighbor's land, a neighbor who happens to take pride in their mowing and landscaping..... WHOooPS JuJu!*
So at first I would run (fast) after her yelling things like "NO!" or "You Are an ASShole!" ..... thinking my disapproval should be known to help train her. I would run after to her so hard I would have to take breathing breaks, bent over holding my knees about to vomit. Then I stopped. I stopped running and she stopped running as far. She would stop after 30-100 feet and wait for me to walk up, acting like she'd been waiting for me all that time and nothing bad had ever happened. I would still show her I was upset after by saying "NO!" and stomping my foot......
*
Let's just say the truth here- I am not a donkey expert (yet). I have never had an animal larger then a fat cat in my life, I never even had a dog! I wanted this donkey in my life for many reasons, most of which I would say are yet to be revealed - I read up on it, I did the research but like anything in life research is nothing quite like reality.
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So tonight I looked up "how to train your donkey" (again)....
and found this tiny paragraph of brilliance:
"In Vicki Abbott's discussion on communication she presents the illustration of the donkey who has pulled away while being haltered with the human shouting, "No!" and chasing after him. Her point is that to the donkey, this human is signaling danger whereupon they must all get some distance away from the snake (lead rope) that has just been detected and is chasing after them. The donkey's flight in this scenario is therefore predictable.
Of course the secret to success here is to understand how to read donkey body language and for us to convey appropriate messages to the donkey so that he doesn't bolt in the first place, and also avoid human-like responses that do little more than reinforce in the donkey's mind that the misbehavior was absolutely the correct thing to do."
Oh my gawd. Tomorrow some shit is gonna change around here! Me and JuJu are going for walk.....
but when she runs off, now what do I say?
xoxoxo
