One afternoon while I was doing some shoeing working at the Pea Ridge Veterinary Clinic in Pea Ridge, Ark., I was approached by a woman who asked me if I’d be able to look at her burro.

She said that the vet wanted to put the burro down because of an ongoing problem with weak flexor tendons. The burro had been treated for 2 months with casts at the clinic and then referred to Oklahoma State University for further treatment. After a month of unsuccessful treatments at OSU, she was told to take the burro home and see if she could find a farrier that knew something about anatomy.

A House-Trained Burro

I went outside and stepped up on the side of the trailer to look down at the burro. But I didn’t see one. “There’s no burro,” I said to the owner. “Oh, we don’t keep it in the trailer, we keep it in the back of the truck,” she replied.

I thought she meant the burro would be in the bed of the pickup she was pulling the trailer with, but to my surprise I saw two long ears sticking up over the back seat of the cab. I opened the door and there was the burro, sitting in the truck, sucking…