Grand Finale

Today was our grand finale of 2016 with the dentist. Since we like to go big or go home we had Sparky the donkey as one of our final dental patients today. Sparky is actually a champ about having his teeth floated and he’s great for the farrier. He stands like a statue to get his blanket on in the winter and he’s generally a very easy donkey to live with. We should know since he’s been in our family for 21 years and counting.

Sparky really only has two things in life he doesn’t do. He doesn’t happily or willingly do needles/injections or go though gates and doors. You can generally do all of these things with some patience and encouragement. We can never forget the seemingly never ending adventure of getting Sparky onto a trailer so we could move him from my parents’ farm (which was sold after my father’s passing) to our farm. I told Jason during that multi-week exercise in frustration that Sparky’s issue was not with the trailer but with going through the door of the trailer. I was right, after we finally got him on the trailer he stood quietly and was content. The door was the problem.

Getting Sparky’s teeth floated did involve his two “dont’s” in life. I had to lead him out of his pasture gate and then through the gate to the barn yard. He actually did both of these things with minimal fuss. Then Sparky had to be lightly sedated via injection. He was pretty reasonable about this as well. He only drug the dentist, myself and the dentist’s assistant around for about five minutes before he stopped and said “fine, just do it.” We didn’t even have to get Jason involved.

It was fun leading Sparky from his pasture to the barn. Sparky’s pasture is very long, and of course he and his pals were all the way at the back of the pasture when I went to get him. As I led Sparky along the driveway to the front barn we, as always, attracted quite the peanut gallery. He lives across from these horses every day and they see him multiple times every day. However, when Sparky is not in his pasture he goes from something not worth lifting a head for to something that must be stared at and stalked. We were escorted along the driveway by the peanut gallery which alternated between stopping and staring, walking along with us, and running along with us. Sparky ignored them all.

Two gates and one injection later Sparky had his teeth floated and we were done floating teeth in 2016. This grand finale was brought to you by Sparky.

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Sparky being attended to by the dentist and his assistant