Dr. Faith Burden

You do see circumstances where donkeys live alongside goats, sheep, but it's often a baby is born.

So you get a kid goat or you might get a lamb.

Donkey doesn't know where that's come from and it may attack the animal.

So yeah, what looks cute is actually not, I'm afraid.

Not at all.

No, that's the donkey's evolutionary fight response.

Because we have to remember that wolves in their environment or other animals are a threat.

And our cute domesticated donkey has...

has only had 7,000 years to overcome that.

And of course they haven't.

So we do recommend people are really careful with donkeys and other livestock and pets.

Yeah, you can.

And that's what we would always advise is somebody lets the donkey see the animal frequently and get used to it.

Sometimes donkeys will decide that that animal is one of them and that's fine.

I would always be careful, I have to say.

I think if a companion starts to show that they're not quite right, maybe they're poorly, maybe they've had a funny reaction to something, I think you've just got to be careful because the donkey isn't doing anything wrong.

And we get lots of calls about donkeys that people don't want anymore because they were cute and cuddly and then they attacked the neighbor's dog or the new lambs.

So

But the donkey's just doing what nature intended it to do.

Yeah, donkeys are going to donkey.