The letter "J"

Today "J" stands for Jack, and no it's not another entry about my cat Jack, it is the story of Jack Hallam and his four friends. Even though I don't know Jack, never met Jack, just heard of him, he holds a special place in the hearts of many of us, as do all the other wonderful unselfish and caring people, who had to endure the same thing, like Cocoa's "mom", like Eeyore's "dad" to just think of a few.  I often wonder if Jack is still alive, and he might easily still be, if he is I am sure there is not a day that does by where he doesn't think of his four friends and the tough decision he had to make almost 10 years ago. Up til September 9th of 2001, Jack and his four friends lived in Salt Spring, British Columbia. At that time Jack was in his early 70's and his life was always filled with plenty of animal friends in his yard, for him it was a labour of love, he had goats, cats, dogs and up til that day in September he also had his best four friends, four miniature donkeys. As much as he loved his four friends, he didn't want to leave his pet donkeys uncared for if he became unable to care for them himself. "They hate to be alone, they need company" he often said, and with a heavy heart he made the decision to send his beloved friends to Ontario to the Donkey Sanctuary of Canada. So on the 9th of September 2001 he loaded the four donkeys into a trailer, he figured the trip was going to take about six days with plenty of stops to let the animals out of the trailer and into a pasture, he had it all planned out, two of his friends drove the trailer, while Jack made other arrangements to get to Ontario and to meet his friends when they arrived at their new home. And so he did. So this is where Jack's story ends and he becomes part of DSC history and how we ended up with the four most cutest miniature donkeys, named Peter, Katy, Marci and Gemmi. They are all four absolutely lovely animals, very loving, cute, curious and everything that a well loved donkey is. No matter how often I am at the DSC working in the office on my little photo project, there is one photo I always love to look at...it's a picture of Jack sitting on his bench, with his four friends around him, sharing oatmeal cookies and apples, what he did every day with them.

Being at the DSC, we never seperated the family, when they went to live on a foster farm for a while, the whole family went, and it is amazing how close these guys are, especially Peter and Katy. Peter is the protector of the family and Katy is an excellent mother, while out in a foster farm, the little mommy broke out and carried hay from a storage area back into their enclosure, when the owner checked on them in the morning, the whole family was knee deep in hay and happily munching away. That might explain why they are all a little bit on the chubby side, well all except Peter, but he is always busy fighting of other donkeys. Marci is a little bit of a rebellious teen, and sometimes doesn't want to associate with her family, but in the end, you always find all four never far from each other.

The whole family is just too cute and it's amazing to watch their interactions and the dynamics between them.