His advice was to teach your team to drive correctly from the beginning. The reasoning is; as we all know donkeys are smarter that a 5th grader, a horse or a mule. So if your donkey has something bad happen when out driving and he goes into panic mode he will revert back to his earlier teachings. If you are going down the road and the lines are floppin’ in the breeze and you are just herding them by simply letting them move forward on their own, Sweetie, some day this will come back to bite ya! If you are driving them on the bit, the traces are tight and you are keeping them side by side and in control, should a bad situation happen they will revert back to this initial training. This is common sense having brought single driving donkeys back from a run away, it seems they do settle quickly and it could possibly have something to do with established habits right from the start. This did help when the team had a minor under control bout with a slight run away that lasted maybe 30 feet, they were easy to bring back to a whoa.

My advisor wanted to make sure I was working on stopping them together. Call out their names and give the whoaaaa command, I like to give them a couple of steps to respond to my voice before asking with the lines in the beginning. Let them come into your hands and draw back with light steady pressure. When they stop release some of the pressure but maintain light contact. The same as you would in show driving. If you have one who starts to back up at the stop call out his name and give the “Step-Up” command if he continues to back lightly tap with the whip to drive him forward and then stop again. At times I have used only the whip so as not to confuse the other one with my voice. The standing still does take practice. In my case it turned out to be the long time driving animal that wanted to back at the stop and not the youngster. I’m a believer in making them stop on level ground, letting them catch their breath and not moving forward until I give the command. This is especially important at any road junction or at the hitching rail when you need them to relax as you enter the vehicle and get ready to drive. I always ask them to be quiet and not move away from the rail for several minutes while I look everything over one last time before heading out to drive. Once they are stopping well go to the next step and without using your voice ask only with line pressure. They need to learn to respond both ways.

To teach them the back up ask for one step at a time. If you have one who wants to back crooked tap him with the whip on the outside to move his hip back over, this should line him out straight. In the beginning I ask them to back together. If this is not happening I will start with my best backer and ask him to back first with a single line. Then I will work with the one who wants to wing out to the side and ask him to get straight then back. A slight incline is a good place to help teach them to back. Eventually you will want them backing together in unison smoothly. Another tip is to tie a line between them from their hip spiders; you’ll need a helper to adjust the harness if it gets pulled off to one side. Once they are backing well together you will be able to give the command using both lines.

I start teaching them to fan both directions and to dock early into the training. Each is taught with just a few steps at a time, slow and easy, from there you can build until you have a solid 180 degree fan, that’s 90 degrees to the right and 90 degrees to the left. To go one step further teach them a 360* fan keeping the inside back wheel motionless.

**NOTE**Remember in any turning situation you have an active line, the line in the direction that you are turning and a supporting line that keeps them in balance.

You’ll always have one who is more forward than the other one. By watching the traces, the eveners and the neck yoke it is easy to tell who is ahead or behind. Do not try to hold the one back that really likes to get out and move. Instead drive the slower one forward and teach him to stay caught up. There are line adjustments to help your team but in the beginning I prefer to push the slower one ahead so no line adjustments will ever be needed.

I like to teach the trot after the team is comfortable at the walk. Start off slowly asking for just a few steps at a time and then increase it as they relax. Our first trots were pretty ugly. Galahad’s head was up; he was hanging back and not pulling in the traces. So we would slow to a walk, try it again for a few more steps building on their progress. Once he became more comfortable we increased the distance. It takes time to teach this, it won’t happen overnight. Once they start trotting well together then it is time to work on speed control. By softening my voice and giving the EASY TROT command and letting them start off together I would get a smoother slower jog. To put them into a working trot from a walk sharpen your voice call out their names and give the TROT command. I want them to know what the vehicle sounds and feels like in a trot and lope. That way if there is ever an out of control run away the vehicle chasing them should not be something they have yet to experience. Take it slow and build into a nice comfortable slow jog and then into a ground eating working trot then work on transitions back and forth.

I found the more I drove them the easier it was for them to get into step with each other. When they were out of step I would know immediately as it gave me a rougher ride in the two wheeled cart. Stopping and restarting them several times until they were in step and then praising them seemed to help them while smoothing out my ride.

HARNESS: Our first drives involved tweaking the harness each time. The harness should fit like a comfortable piece of clothing. On a draft set up make sure your breast strap is set so it will move forward and not hang up on the collar which also means to keep the girth strap loose enough for the breast collar to pass thru on contact and then revert back to a relaxed position. Make sure both breast straps move forward the same amount of distance on each animal to engage the britchin which is your braking system.

Another measurement that really helped me was to have the quarter straps hanging the same distance from the belly on both animals.

I had a major problem with the lines. At first I knew my inside lines were not making contact. When I measured them the inside draft line was12 inches longer than the outside continuous line. I adjusted them down to four inches and found the donkeys were too close together and biting each others faces. The next hole on the coupling buckle gave me a six inch difference. The team lined out straight and the inside draft lines came into contact with the bit.

VEHICLE: The Pacific Carriage Show Cart was set up for leather slotted tugs or traces, where as the Robert’s Cross Country Trail Buggy was not. Therefore it made sense to adjust the single trees on the evener of the buggy to match the cart. Otherwise I would be changing to chain traces every time I wanted to use the buggy which was not an appealing thought. To change the single trees on the evener, weld cut chain links to each side of the single tree, cover with spray paint and you are set up for the leather slotted traces.

Get out your tape measure as one half of the length of the evener should match the length of the neck yoke, this measurement also affects your inside draft line.

The sequence to hitch is first attach the neck yoke with the snaps pointing towards each other, then hook the inside trace before the outside one on each animal. To unhitch take the inside trace off first before removing the outside, then undo the neck yoke. Another safety feature is to have all your snaps facing towards the collar so nothing can catch and hang up on a snap trapping an animal.

This message comes from my personal experience while teaching RMS Lippyluver Luc and OK Sir Galahad to work together as a team; from the internet, driving books and the great advice I have received. I still believe the best way to accomplish driving training comes from the assistance of a professional trainer or a driving mentor. There are many driving books and magazines on the market for reference material. Don’t forget the internet chat groups. If you need an answer quickly there are some wonderful experts in cyber space who are willing to share their experience. All you need to do is pose a question and decide which answer works for you. Starting with an older team can also teach you with a lot less stress, so look at some semi retired teams to get you started. One more bit of advice is to drive with a groom, for horse pairs, trainers will tell you that you need 500 hours of driving time with a beginning team before you go it alone. That advice my friend is from the expertise voice of experience.

What ever you do be safe and always have a great drive.
Kristi
 

Thank you Kristi Kingma for sharing your information with TheDonkeyShowSite.

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