Some people have dogs, cats or birds, but this lady has… A donkey?

Many seniors who are on their own like to keep a pet for company and Margaret White is no different, except that her pet is Douglas, a six-year-old donkey.

Margaret, a former pre-primary teacher, lives in a granny flat in Orange Grove and has only her age pension to live on.

“You can live on the pension but it doesn’t run to keeping large animals,” she said. So Douglas lives on her friend Dawn Maton’s nearby property.

“I pay for his keep by working at Dawn’s.

“This takes up my time. I fill my life up with donkeys and children.”

Donkeys live up to 50 years.

“Douglas will probably outlive me. I left him to my to daughter in my will but she has moved to Ireland.

“I can’t take him with me if I move into aged care.”

Dawn agists horses on a hectare of pasture and also has the run of some neighbours’ properties.

A few years ago a friend of Dawn’s daughter asked her to look after a 30-year-old donkey.

Later she asked her farrier where she could get another donkey for company and was introduced to the Donkey Society.

Soon she acquired two old Jennies and Mr Darcy, a six-year-old donkey who had been raised as a pet and grown too big. Mr Darcy and Douglas are half brothers.

“Mr Darcy lets me think I’m the boss,” said Dawn. “Training donkeys is not easy. Mr Darcy established the ground rules. When he gets bored he switches off.”

Dawn and Margaret decided to train their donkeys to harness with help from Helen McIntyre of the Donkey Society.

“They trained their donkeys to harness with no experience of either donkeys or harness before, which show how easy donkeys are to deal with,” said Helen.

“Most people don’t ‘get’ donkeys and the donkey knows that and refuses to co-operate, which is why we have a Donkey Society; to help people understand that donkeys are not stubborn but they think very differently from other equines.

“If you don’t know the tricks of getting through to them you cannot succeed, if you do know how they think and work with them on their level until you are in charge, then a donkey can and will do anything a horse of a similar size can do.”

“They took to harness like ducks to water. Donkeys love to work,” said Dawn.

“Donkeys don’t leap about like horses. When faced with a possible threat they hunker down and refuse to move.”

They are not spooked by traffic and Dawn and Margaret take them out on the road at least once a week and on monthly Donkey Society outings.

They are also very social animals.

Dawn is a volunteer at Amaroo aged care village in Gosnells and takes Mr Darcy along regularly.

“Donkeys socialise well. They get on well with old people, they are careful around wheelchairs and they are gentle and quiet. They allow themselves to be touched and are especially good with dementia patients.

“At Christmas we dressed them up as reindeer pulling a sledge consisting of a gopher trundling behind.”

Margaret and Dawn also take the pair to preschool and day care.

“Many children have never seen a real donkey,” she said.

They also remind Middle-East migrants of home.

“One Afghan said if you had five donkeys, like we do, in Kabul you would have a transport company,” said Dawn.

We get them out as much as possible

“We take them to church at Christmas and Palm Sunday.”

Donkeys are not the only social animals. Their owners love to chat too – about donkeys.

What kind of pet do you have? What interesting places do you take them?