Hand puppet donkey - Puppet Buddies - Puppet Company

Brown fur, a grey muzzle, long grey-lined ears and a black mane: the donkey hand puppet from The Puppet Company Puppet Buddies range brings a creature to the stage that children know from nativity plays, picture books and petting zoos. Precisely because donkeys are thought stubborn, they reward role play: this one does not say yes at once, he thinks first — and that is worth talking about with a group. At Christmas he belongs to the cast anyway, and in farm projects he stands alongside the horse, cow and sheep from the same range.

Head and front legs work by hand. The puppet is made from 65 per cent recycled materials.

The domestic donkey, Equus asinus asinus, descends from the African wild ass and was domesticated more than seven thousand years ago in East Africa. Depending on the breed, height at the withers ranges from eighty to a hundred and sixty centimetres. Its hooves are adapted to dry, stony ground and absorb more moisture than a horse's, which causes trouble in wet climates. Donkeys live in groups, have a long memory and often reach more than forty years of age.

Did you know that donkeys are not stubborn at all? Where a horse bolts from danger, a donkey stops and checks where to put its feet — behaviour that saves lives in the mountains. Pressing it achieves the opposite: the donkey grows more cautious still. What looks like obstinacy is in fact prudence.