Will a donkey follow a carrot on a string? (5 photos)

This is an old but very popular story. Like, hang a carrot on a stick in front of the donkey and twirl it as you want. A dull but persistent animal will tirelessly reel kilometer after kilometer until the expected reward hangs in front of it. But why then is it impossible to find videos with stupid, gullible donkeys on the Internet?





Hey man, are you okay in your head? That's not how they catch fish.

But because it’s impossible to do this with them, no matter how you look at it. Primarily due to the anatomical features of the animal. The donkey just won't see the carrot! If you hang a vegetable in front of an animal's face, it will be in the blind spot of its field of vision. The eyes of a donkey, like other ungulates, do not look forward, but to the side, which makes it possible to detect a predator trying to attack from the flank. As a nice bonus, our hero can see his front legs at any head position. But to look directly in front of him, he needs to stop and turn his head to the side.



So that's where this carrot has been all this time.

Okay, let's say you're lucky and you find a mutant donkey with binocular vision, like that of predators. And it still won't help! A donkey can play tricks with a carrot once or twice, but after 15 minutes of blackmail he will be disappointed both in his attempts to get the carrot and in the vile little man who thought of this torture. Research shows that our hero's learning speed is no lower than that of a dog, and in a number of tests even reaches the learning speed of dolphins. And I don’t remember that we tried to control the descendants of wolves with a piece of meat tied to a string.





Donkeys are calm and intelligent enough to become therapeutic animals. Trained animals are so affectionate and empathetic that they help reduce stress levels and get rid of panic fear of animals.

Thanks to their lively and sharp minds, donkeys have mastered professions in which they seemed to have nothing to do. For example, the role of a guard animal. A well-trained donkey not only manages a herd of sheep, but also protects its charges from single predators just as well as a large dog. Yes, it is not a meat eater and does not have special devices for fighting, but it is still a strong animal weighing 200-400 kilos. Wolves, hyenas and jackals simply don't stand a chance.



Behave yourself, otherwise I won’t give up the lambs!

To replace a guard dog, donkeys have to show constant attention to the world around them and correctly calculate their strength. And to work in a mine, you also have to adapt to conditions that you cannot find in the wild. If donkeys can get used to the noise of mining machines, eternal darkness and a thousand tons of rock overhead, then they will easily get used to a carrot dangling in front of their muzzle.



In some countries, donkeys still work underground. This photo was taken in Pakistan in 2014.

But if our phlegmatic friends are so smart, then where does the myth about their narrow-mindedness come from? It appeared due to the social status of their owners. Already in the times of ancient Greece, donkeys were owned predominantly by the broad (and poor) masses. While the rich preferred stronger, faster and more stately horses. Well, and, accordingly, the image of beautiful wise creatures was assigned to horses, and to donkeys - unassuming simpletons.