Little dungkey
Family take miniature mule into their home for Christmas after he was rejected by his mother ... even though he isn’t house trained
A BABY donkey rejected by its mother is to spend its first Christmas in a family home – and he’s already causing chaos.
Miniature mule Bond nibbles on the Xmas tree, pulls down stockings, chews on his owner’s cookbooks and even poos in the kitchen.
But Alison Wiseman and her family are prepared to put up with the cheeky three-month-old’s antics for the festive season after his real mum Dippy rejected him following his birth at Balnuith Farm in Tealing, near Dundee, in September.
Alison – who runs the farm with husband John, 66 – decided to name the 20in Mediterranean donkey after Sean Connery.
Bond has been bottle-fed since birth and now lives between the family’s conservatory and kitchen – but he still needs to brush up on his manners.
Alison, 53, said: “He’s become an extremely naughty donkey around the house. We’ve got an artificial Christmas tree and he strolls past, opens his mouth and just grabs anything he can from it.
“Sometimes it’s the tinsel, sometimes the lights or the pretty ornaments. I think it’s all the pretty colours. There have been some ornamental casualties that will never see Christmas again. We try to keep an eye on him. As soon as we see him going near the tree, we tell him off.
“But sometimes you are not there and you hear the commotion and your baubles bouncing across the floor.
“And the Christmas stockings on the fireplace – I’m forever picking them up because he keeps pulling them off. But there’s one thing that he likes more – Mary Berry. I have a line of cookery books and he’s chewed them all off the shelf. Poor Mary Berry.”
Alison explained: “When his mother gave birth to him in September, she just rejected him. She’s a first-time mum. Often when mothers reject their young, it’s a sign that there’s something wrong with the baby. Because she wasn’t feeding him, we brought him in the house.
“We had powdered alpaca milk so we started giving him that. We got the vets in to check him. They said that we should just carry on with the milk as it was agreeing with him.
“When you sit up with an animal every two hours bottle-feeding them, you know whether they’re sick or not. We were very confident that he wasn’t.
“We are gradually trying to get him outside but it’s winter and we don’t have the heart to put him outside.
“We’ve worked so hard to look after him and we don’t want to risk anything happening to him now.”
Bond has struck up a friendship with Alison’s Irish wolfhound – called Cilla Bark. Alison said: “We’re trying to train him like we would a puppy and take him outside every so often.
“He does not want to be a donkey. He prefers to be a dog. His best friend is Cilla Bark. They’re just always together. They play sometimes like two puppies would. She now eats carrots and he eats dog biscuits. Who would’ve believed that?”
Alison – who also keep 37 alpacas and 10 Falabella miniature horses at the farm – added: “He’s just really sweet and lovely. He will eventually become a show donkey. He’ll be a career boy some time.”