I’m sure that many of you will have seen the TV advertising for Carlsberg, where the tag line is: ‘If Carlsberg made....it would probably be the best in the world’? Well, I think that if Carlsberg bred donkeys they would have come up with Jack Benbow!
Jack is 10 years old and lives at Town Barton Farm with his best friend Solly the mule. They are on the foster list and would love to go and live in a private home with a caring family, and if only I had the space I would snap them up! Jack has such a strong character and a hilarious personality; you can’t but smile when you are around him. He is in to everything and naughty in a very cheeky way.
One day I was in the barn with Jack’s group trying to bandage another donkey’s foot when, of course, Jack came over to help. I had my cotton wool and bandage laid out ready, I picked up Eeyore’s foot and cleaned it out and then reached over for the cotton wool only to find that it had disappeared... and there is Jack trotting off across the barn with it in his mouth! After extracting the cotton wool from his grasp I went back to Eeyore, picked up her foot again, cleaned it out again and put the cotton wool over her hoof before reaching out for the bandage to hold it in place. But lo and behold, the bandage was missing this time. I looked up in time to see Jack busily unravelling it as he wondered around the barn with it in his mouth tangling up all passing donkeys as he went! After taking it off him and sorting out the tangled mess I went back to Eeyore for the third time!
I turned my back on her to again lay out some new cotton wool and a new bandage to try the dressing again, but when I turned back and reached out to pick up her foot I discovered there was no foot to pick up, as whilst I was busy preparing the bandage and cotton wool, Jack had untied Eeyore's rope with his teeth and was busy leading her off across the barn! After being embarrassingly outwitted by Jack three times in a row, I threw in the towel and had to go and get reinforcements to help me finish the job, which was a much easier task when I had a second person to entertain Jack for five minutes!
If you look at my other blog titled ‘Jack and Stuff... two budding show jumpers in the making‘, you can see a photo of Jack enjoying some show jumping too.
Jack Benbow - probably the best donkey in the world!
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