My donkey is a bodyguard!
Dianne Parnell, 73, shares her sweet story with Take 5…
I’d just stepped inside after a long day at work when the phone rang.
Advertisement
It was 2021 and he was living in another house on the property overlooking the back paddock where my 60-odd sheep were grazing.
“Yesterday,” I replied.
“You’d better come look,” he urged. “There’s bodies everywhere!”
Advertisement
Native ad body.
Sponsored by %%sponsor_name%%
We’re nudists! So, we had a nude wedding!
Dog chews groom’s passport days before destination wedding
Native ad body.
Sponsored by %%sponsor_name%%
Her besties made her popular… then she MURDERED them!
I lost $500,000 on the pokies
Native ad body.
Sponsored by %%sponsor_name%%
Arsonist Jenny Hayes killed my family as they slept
Weird pregnancy cravings
Native ad body.
Sponsored by %%sponsor_name%%
My husband overcame many challenges after his injury.
A vibrator exploded my heart!
65 Tinder Dates in one night
My Tom Cruise impression paid off my debt!
Dashing up there, I was horrified to find 25 sheep, including young lambs, lying dead.
It was clear from the wounds that they’d been attacked by wild dogs from the bush.
“They haven’t eaten them,” I observed in disbelief. “Just killed them for sport.”
The poor other sheep were clearly shaken from the bloodbath.
Advertisement
Our farm had been in the family since 1850, and in the 40 years I’d lived there, we’d never had wild dogs attack.
Next day, Graeme, along with my other son, John, dug a large grave for the sheep.
As those 25 would have had a market value of around $15,000, it was a painful loss.
We moved the remaining flock further from the bushland and began investigating ways to protect them.
Advertisement
Native ad body.
Sponsored by %%sponsor_name%%
We’re nudists! So, we had a nude wedding!
Dog chews groom’s passport days before destination wedding
Native ad body.
Sponsored by %%sponsor_name%%
Her besties made her popular… then she MURDERED them!
I lost $500,000 on the pokies
Native ad body.
Sponsored by %%sponsor_name%%
Arsonist Jenny Hayes killed my family as they slept
Weird pregnancy cravings
Native ad body.
Sponsored by %%sponsor_name%%
My husband overcame many challenges after his injury.
A vibrator exploded my heart!
65 Tinder Dates in one night
My Tom Cruise impression paid off my debt!
First, we tried alpacas, but the feral dogs killed them.
“Apparently donkeys can defend sheep,” John told me after searching online.
So in early 2022, I visited the Last Stop Donkey Program in Singleton, NSW.
Advertisement
I was met by the manager, Brooke, who’d mustered 50 wild donkeys from Queensland and the NT with her husband, Heath.
“Donkeys are a pest up north,” she explained, “so we brought them to the Hunter Valley to help with the dog problem.”
When I questioned their usefulness as bodyguards, she told a surprising story.
“A pig got into the enclosure recently,” she said, “and one of the donkeys kicked it to death in defence.”
