The donkey was domesticated a thousand years prior to the horse. Kathy Dean, director of Longhopes Donkey Shelter in Bennett, Colo., said donkeys were domesticated early on because they made great pack animals and have good working dispositions. Dean said the Spaniards brought donkeys to the United States to travel the west, carrying goods and pulling carts. Some donkeys were used in coal mines, and never saw light until they were turned loose at the end of the coalmine era. Many of the wild or feral donkeys rescued today are descendants of the “coalminers’ donkeys.”Dean started the donkey shelter in 1999 because of a need and a desire to give something back. The donkeys are rescued from owners who can no longer take care of them or auctions and sale barns, where they are sold for food processing or human consumption. The Bureau of Land Management also refers the feral donkeys to Dean. Since incorporating as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization in 2000, Dean has adopted 125 donkeys and only 14 have come back (but all were re-adopted). The shelter takes in about 30 donkeys per year and adopts out the same.Many of the donkeys need medical care and training before they are adopted, Dean said. There is no breeding at the shelter, the males are sterilized and no donkey is adopted for breeding. Because the donkeys are a herd animal with a definite social structure, the shelter prefers to adopt the donkeys in pairs. “A donkey living by himself becomes very lonely,” Dean said. Those who want to adopt must pay a fee of $500 for a pair or $300 for a single donkey, and they are required to have at least one acre per donkey. Shelter volunteers visit potential homes, and the shelter holds on to the title for the donkey for six months to one year. If the donkey does not fit with the person, the fee is refunded 100 percent.Dean and her husband live on the property with their two donkeys. The rescued donkeys have two 15-acre pastures, and Dean and an all-volunteer crew of 25 feed and clean their three barns and corals on a rotating basis.Other than one shelter in Arizona, Longhopes Donkey Shelter is the only shelter nationwide exclusively for donkeys. The name, Longhopes, was created because of the donkeys’ long ears and Dean’s hope for a better life for the donkeys. “These gentle creatures deserve better than what they’ve gotten,” Dean said.For more information about the donkey shelter, call 303-644-5930 or visit the Web site at www.longhopes.org. A donor picnic is planned for September, and Dean is hoping to get more people interested in adopting and volunteering.
