Teri, your right, it funny to watch just how they go about doing there protecting and guarding. With the bear incident , my jennys all went right up to the fence and would literally run along with the bear braying there BIG hearts out..its THERE pasture and NOTING is coming into it as far as they are concerned, .while my hinnys kept the mares at the opposite end of the dry lot..which is about 40' behind our house and next to the barn. The hinnys wouldn't let those mares out of "running range". I wish now I would of camcorded it, but I was to busy keeping a eye on what was going on, and hoping we wouldnt have to do the 3 s's to the bear (shoot, shovel, and shutup, which we didnt) The DNR told me donkey are about the best you can get. About 3 yrs ago, a friend who lives about 9 miles from me had a arabian killed by a bear. We do the best we can to protect our animals but nothing is going to be 100% positive. My donks will stomp anything in the pasture too, but yet protect foals like they were there own. YUP~~~ a few really good donkeys are definitely worth there weight in gold. My neighbors even put up with there braying...it alerts them as well, to watch there calves. This past summer we had bear in our back field which is about 15 acres behind our pasture area, they played and moved on down to our creek, drank, and went on there merry way. Never stopped to check out any of our horses or cattle, and the cattle were actually in the same field with them, but my donkeys did do there loud and impressive bray ...I guess to let them know they were watching... :bgrin who knows..but its working, and I wouldnt be without mine. Ce