Lonely donkey experiences 'pure joy' playing with yoga ball

COWICHAN VALLEY, B.C. -

When Earl the donkey first arrived at the animal sanctuary, he was devastated.

“He was a sad donkey,” Michelle Singleton says. “He didn’t know what to do with himself.”

The president of the Home for Hooves Farm Sanctuary says that not only was the donkey suffering from a foot condition that made walking uncomfortable, his owner recently died, and he’d spent his whole life confined in a backyard alone.

“Donkeys are herd animals,” Michelle says. “They very much need to be part of their own family with other donkeys.”

Seeing as there weren’t any other donkeys, Michelle and her team tried to spend as much with Earl as they could.

“But he would cry every time we left his side,” Michelle says, before showing a video of Earl wailing.

So, while Michelle arranged for other rescued donkeys to arrive at the sanctuary, animal caregiver Nik England arranged a play-date of sorts between Earl and a pig named Pongo.

“Earl and Pongo didn’t really get on that well,” Nik says.

It didn’t go any better when Earl was encouraged to form a friendship with the goats named Chico, Miguel, Daisy, Boone and Bugsy.

“The goats made him nervous,” Nik says.

Although staff and volunteers could fix the donkey’s foot condition so he could run around the sanctuary, learning how to interact with others after being isolated for so long was more of a challenge.

“Earl was looking for something different,” Nik says.

Then someone wondered, if the donkey couldn’t play with someone else, perhaps Earl could play with something else.

They gave the donkey a large yoga ball.

“He just absolutely loved it,” Nik smiles.

Earl and his ball were inseparable. The donkey was transformed.

“For him it was just pure joy,” Michelle smiles.

Earl played with the ball for countless hours every day and night. Until two weeks later, Michelle discovered the donkey heartbroken.

“He’s there trying to play with his ball, but it’s completely deflated,” Michelle says. “He’s trying to push it with his nose, but it’s not going anywhere.”

But after Michelle shared the donkey’s dilemma on social media, featuring a photo of Earl mourning his ball, the post seemed to go everywhere.

“It’s like everyone’s life mission right now is to get Earl a ball,” Michelle said.

They received so many donations from across the province—almost 30 balls—Michelle had to graciously ask people to stop because they had no more room to store them.

Instead she’s inviting people to consider donating to their matching fundraiser, to build the sanctuary a new fence.

“They know (the ball) brought joy into his life,” Michelle smiles, before showing Earl enthusiastically racing around, pushing his first new yoga ball with his nose. “They just wanted to make sure that stays in his life.”

While the sanctuary’s staff and volunteers couldn’t be more grateful for the generosity of so many people, they also couldn’t be more hopeful about the recent arrival of a trio of rescue donkeys to join Earl on the farm.

“Our hope is just for him to have companionship and happiness,” Michelle smiles. “And just providing him with an environment where he can thrive.”

While the new donkeys —Romeo, Tango and Jenny — are preparing to teach Earl how wonderful it will be to join a donkey family for the first time, Earl seems to be practicing his ball skills to show them how blissful it will be to form a sports team together.