Donkeys find new herd with non-profit

Nestled in the beautiful rolling hills just outside of Dahlonega is a very special place where abused and neglected donkeys can find a loving ‘forever home’: Healing Herds Sanctuary. The 10-acre facility on Old Federal Road, located just off of Hwy. 9 and only a few minutes drive from downtown Dahlonega, is the brain child of local couple Jim and Aimee Guidetti.
Founded in 2021, Healing Herds currently is home to ten donkeys, and that number was already set to swell to a dozen animals as of press time.
“We’re going on a rescue just as soon as we finish this interview,” Aimee cheerfully informed The Nugget.
One of the reasons Aimee is so excited is that Healing Herds Sanctuary just received  its 501(c)(3) status last month as a nonprofit dedicated to preventing cruelty to animals. The designation will allow the organization to ramp up its fundraising efforts in order to maintain, and hopefully even expand, its rescue operations. It also places Healing Herds in rarified air, as one of only a handful of similar non-profits operating within the United States.
“There’s maybe 15 rescues in the United States that are specifically for donkeys that are 501(c)(3)s. So we’re very rare, “ Aimee said “… [Local attorney] Alfred Chang did our 501(c)(3), and he did it for free.  … We’re so grateful. He loved the cause and really stepped up.”
She went on to add that even more great news is on the horizon.
“Also, we have the Department of Agriculture coming Monday, and once we get our license with the Department of Ag… we’ll be a part of the Humane Society,” Aimee indicated.
At that point, Aimee said the name of the organization will likely change from “Healing Herds Sanctuary” to “Healing Herds Humane Society.”
Aimee believes that she will then be able to forge much-needed partnerships with larger groups like the Atlanta Humane Society.
“There’s a lot of grants that could be offered. And that’s exactly what we need,” Aimee said.
The costs of running the rescue operation are significant, and up to this point the Guidettis have shouldered most of the burden themselves.
“The cost here is about $2,500 to $3,000 a month to keep them up with their farriers, vets, shots, food, barn, fans, all of the stuff that is required,” Aimee explained.

MODEST BEGINNINGS

The Guidettis took on Toby and Dobby, their first pair of rescued donkeys, on August 23, 2021. The two miniature donkeys were what Aimee referred to as a “bonded pair.”
“When a donkey bonds with another donkey, it’s like swans, they bond for life. Male or female. They don’t like to be alone. A lonely donkey is a sad donkey,” Aimee said.
Unfortunately, the Guidettis have had to rescue individual donkeys who were living in such a state of isolation.
John Henry, a rare and endangered mammoth donkey, was one of those cases. He was acquired by Healing Herds on October 26, 2021.
“We picked up the oldest one, [John] Henry, and he’s 20 years old. His hooves were so long they were curled up. He’s got arthritis. He was about starved to death. And we’re still, two years later, treating his hooves and trying to straighten them out,” Aimee said.
Another lonely addition was Bo, a jack (male donkey) who was living with a herd of cattle. Bo would charge the cows and chase after them, resulting in him being placed in a solitary stall by his owner. Now he is thrilled to be in the company of his own kind again.
“People usually get [donkeys] and want to put them in the pasture with their cows to guard against coyotes and different predators like that, and what they don’t realize if they’re just getting one is they’re not going to be happy, and they’ll get founder on the grass, because grass is really [too] sweet for them,” Jim said.
“These are desert creatures,” Aimee added. “Even though they’re equine, they are nothing like a horse [in terms of] their digestive [system] or what they eat. They eat grain and hay. It’s low carb and low sugar.”

REASONS TO RESCUE

The Guidettis said that the two primary sources of their animals are owner surrenders and rescues. They said that the next pair of donkeys set to be picked up fall under the former category.
“The gentleman we’re picking up from [today], he’s 92 and just can’t take care of them anymore. You know, donkeys live 50 years, so they outlive their owners a lot of times. So we try to provide them a forever home here, but we also pick up neglected ones. It’s about half-and-half: half rescue, half owner surrender,” Aimee explained.
The couple indicated that rescue operations range from capturing loose animals that are a traffic threat to picking up donkeys being sold at auction for dubious purposes.
“This little girl right here has a sad story,” Aimee said as she gestured toward one of the newer additions to the family. “She was ripped away from her bonded mate and sent to auction and sold … A lot of bad people out there flip animals. She was a product of being flipped. But she’s coming out of her shell, slowly but surely. Her name’s Norma Jean. And we think she’s pregnant.”
Aimee said that Norma Jean and Ellie May, another recent rescue, would be examined by visiting veterinarian Pam Milligan soon to make a final determination. She said that pregnancies at Healing Herds are usually the result of interactions with other animals prior to being rescued, since it takes donkeys a full year to give birth.
“When I get male donkeys here, we always geld the jacks. We are here to save them and not re-create them,” Aimee said.

FUTURE PLANS

The Guidettis are hopeful that with the support of the community they will be able to expand their operations even further in the future by adding public events.
“We’re still in our infancy, but we have big plans and big dreams. But it takes funding to do what we have in our vision,” Aimee said.
That vision includes public fundraising events, as well as partnerships with other non-profit organizations to help treat local residents suffering from depression, autism, and ADHD.
“We have twelve anti-depressants roaming around here,” Aimee said. “They’re so good on the human soul. And hence, why it’s called ‘Healing Herds’. We want to heal donkeys. We want to heal people. We want to heal each other. And we want the community to be a part of it, too.”
The Guidettis also believe there is an opportunity for educational outreach as well, since donkeys are frequently misunderstood creatures.
“They’ve got such a bad stereotype of being dumb and stubborn. And it’s all the opposite. They [seem] stubborn because they’re so highly intelligent that they’re thinking about the situation,” Aimee explained.
Another long-term goal of the Guidettis is to build a new barn to better serve the needs of the drove, or herd, of donkeys on the property.
“We want to have a 20-stall barn out there … so we can hit the auctions and save them from the slaughter houses. Once a donkey hits the auction, there’s so little need for them that they go straight to the meat market,” Aimee said.
The Guidettis added that a new barn facility would provide dedicated stalls to render medical and maternity aid to the donkeys, as well as a potential event venue for future fund-raising opportunities like a “Hee-Haw Hoe Down.”
Meanwhile Kristi Marshall, a close friend of the Guidettis, is currently making plans for other fundraisers to be announced soon.
“We’re working on it. We have an idea to have a Texas Hold-em Tournament. Aimee and her husband are big into Jeeps, so instead of doing a motorcycle run we were thinking about doing a Jeep run with all the ‘Jeepers’ in the community … We’re just throwing around ideas right now,” Marshall said.
In the meantime, citizens interested in finding out more or donating to the cause can visit the non-profit’s website at www.healingherds.org. Additional pictures and videos can also be found on the Facebook, Instagram and Youtube platforms.
Marshall, for her part, believes that a single visit with the contented animals at Healing Herds will win over even the donkey skeptics among us.
“All you have to do is spend ten minutes with them, and you fall in love,” she said. “ They’re more affectionate than you think they are.”