Happy Trails Board Member, Rob Willard, and I arrived at a residence in Suffield Tuesday evening to see if we could help in some way with a "stray mini-donkey" that appeared in someone's yard the day before. You could hear the frustration in the callers voice — "We tried to catch this thing since last night. It's been running all over the neighborhood and won't let you near it, and we're afraid it's going to get hit in the road or cause an accident!" (It ends up that we believe the little-but-freaky frightened creature is a very young mule, so that's what we'll call it for this story for now!)

Before we hooked up the trailer and left, I tried again to call the person who found the youngster, but the phone was full of static and I was only able to hear the person on the other end say that I was talking to her neighbor. Just after a bout of static and before my phone went dead, I heard the animated voice on the other end of the phone exclaim, "That thing's crazy!" More static and then silence... Great. That's just what I wanted to hear. I'd wait to share that tidbit of information with Rob until we were on our way there - no sense in talking a rescuer/hauler out of helping out that night!

After Rob hooked up the trailer and we were finally on our way to check out the situation, I did a casual, "Oh by the way..." type of thing. "The static in the phone was really bad when I called to tell them we were on our way, but before it cut off I heard the neighbor saying 'that thing's crazy'!"  And I chuckled nervously.

Silence. Then an..."I hate you," came the reply. OK, we got that over with! At least he knew what to expect.

By the time we arrived, the neighbors had the little freaky guy corralled into a stall. He stood there in the center of the stall, innocently enough. He was cute as a button with long ears and a wide-eyed looked. We asked the usual questions, about where he might live in the neighborhood or who did they think might own him. No ideas - the neighbors all seemed to know everyone in the area, and hadn't a clue as to where he could have escaped from. Interestingly enough, he had a circle of dried glue on his left hind quarter, a remnant of an auction tag.

For now, we decided to load him up and place him in a safe and caring foster home. 

It was rather funny that all the neighbors stood safely on the other side of the fencing while Rob and I approached the mule who

Our outside photos were a bit blurry because of the downpour. Here Rob tries to reason with the (stubborn) mule.

was calmly standing in the middle of the stall. Rob entered the stall and reached out to place a lead rope on the baby mule's halter. Weeee!  The fun began! It was time to rear up and spin around in circles and double-barrel kick the walls with as much force as possible. All the while Rob kept talking to the giant baby in a calm voice. "It's ok. It's alright." I was thinking, "OK for who?"  The whole situation didn't look safe and it didn't look like fun. I stayed in the doorway to serve as a road block.

Once a few feet closer to the trailer, the youngster hopped right in and settled down somewhat. Paperwork was signed and thank-you's exchanged, and off we went to his new foster home.

We had orginally told our foster mom, Kim, that she would be receiving a mini donkey. She already has donkeys (as well as other horses) and loves them to pieces. She was more than happy to foster the stray "donkey" for Happy Trails. We arrived at Kim's in the pouring down rain. We decided a long time ago that any animal rescue wouldn't be complete without really really crappy weather like buckets and buckets of rain, massive sheets of ice, tons of mud and dirt, or large farm animals that weren't handle hardly ever in their entire lifetime. 

Kim looked at the "donkey".  "I think that's a mule! He's a young one!" I didn't miss a beat. "Really? OK, where do you want him?"

It took some fancy maneuvering, but we were able to get the mule past Kim's curious crew of horses, mini donkey's and goats, and into a stall of his own. He settled down and looked in wonder at his nice dry stall and immediately dove into a pile of hay.

So we thought that if the baby actually was a stray or had gotten out of someone's fence by accident, surely they would be looking for their furry friend. We reported the stray mule to both our county APL as well as to the Sheriff's Department incase someone called in to report their mule missing. However, no-one has stepped up to attempt to claim the stray animal. Many people don't want to re-claim a stray farm animal, being concerned about fines regarding animals at large, being responsible for damage to other people's property, or having to pay boarding and care costs until they finally decided to claim the animal.

The other scenario is that this poor youngster was dumped in the area - a product of an uncaring owner or someone who was simply looking for an easy way out of being responsible. Either way, he was homeless, cold, wet, hungry and deathly afraid.

The next day, Kim, our foster mom, calls to report in.  "He's doing very well, and he let me brush him and he ate out of my hand! If no-one claims him, I would like to adopt him!"  Here's she laughs. "When I told my husband I wanted to keep him, he said, 'Let me get this straight. You said we would be fostering a mini donkey. But he's not a mini....and he's not a donkey. And now you want to adopt him."  We decided that we would never let our husband's compare notes, and God bless these guys for being the good sports that they are!

Since a week has now gone by and no-one has attempted to report a missing mule, we have officially labeled him as abandoned. Sad. But in reality, that's most likely what happened, given the fact that the neighbors all seemed know each other and what animals lived at the various farms. But be assured that the scared little guy is now safe, happy, has a warm shelter, plenty of food, and other animals for friends. He is being vet checked, vaccinated, dewormed, will have his hooves trimmed, and will be gelded.

Luckily his story has a happy ending, thanks to the people who cared enough to spend hours upon hours trying to catch him so that he would be safe. Nice job to everyone involved in this rescue — once again a community came together for a higher good. Without the folks who rescued the mule, the involvement of Happy Trails for loading and hauling, and the cooperation of the foster home for providing an emergency shelter, the help provided for this animal would not have been possible. Many many thanks!