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In the run-up to the release of “Shrek,” a celebrity emerged from a pasture in Palo Alto, California – Perry, a 5-year-old gray miniature donkey.
Dozens of animators visited the pasture where Perry lived, and he became their motion model for the “Donkey” character voiced by Eddie Murphy. As the film went on to win the first Academy Award for best animated feature in 2002 and cement itself into the ranks of animated classics, Perry carried on as usual. Some visitors to his pasture knew the role he’d played in the film’s making and others didn’t, but they cherished him just the same for decades.
The 30-year-old donkey was euthanized Thursday. In recent weeks, his health had rapidly deteriorated as he struggled to walk and suffered intense pain from an incurable condition, said Jenny Kiratli, lead handler for the animals at Barron Park Donkey Project. The volunteer organization cared for Perry since 1997, a couple years before animators came to study him for “Shrek.”
“It was the animation that made him the celebrity, and people always were interested in that,” Kiratli said. “But that really wasn’t a big part of our attachment to him. It was just his personality.”
Kiratli remembered Perry as a gentle, loving animal with soulful eyes and ears that always seemed alert – perked up at all times.
He loved to be near his donkey companions April and Buddy in the pasture, seeking them out when they were out of sight during walks. Earlier, Perry had lived at the pasture with three other donkeys, all of whom he’d adored until their deaths.
“It was important to him to have his herd,” Kiratli said.
Perry’s brush with fame came after a chance encounter.
In 1999, animator Rex Grignon was tasked with designing Donkey, Shrek’s chatty but good-natured sidekick. His team had completed the character’s basic design but still needed a model for how a real-life donkey moved.
At the time, Grignon’s wife happened to take walks in the same neighborhood as the pasture, and she told him about the donkeys, Kiratli said. Grignon then brought his team to draw Perry and watch him trot along.
Kiratli, who didn’t meet Perry until much later, said she can see how the animators brought his movements to the big screen.
She could see Perry in Donkey’s trot, in the way he tossed his head and in the way he looked down his nose and rolled his eyes when he was annoyed.
“They absolutely got his movements,” Kiratli said.
In the decades since the film’s release, memories of Perry’s claim to fame faded but the community’s love for him never dimmed, she said.
Visitors stood at the pasture’s gate throughout the day to say hello to Perry, April and Buddy. Their mailbox reads: “Please leave donkey art here.” Every Sunday morning, volunteers took the three donkeys on a walk to the nearby Cornelis Bol Park, where they stopped at the playground to let admirers pet and brush the animals.
Upon spotting them, passersby often shout: “The donkeys are here! It’s the donkeys!”
Over the years, Perry had become especially affectionate around humans, Kiratli said. When she hugged his head or neck, he often leaned in closer. At other times, as he lay on the ground, he would put his head in a handler’s lap, she said.
But in recent years, the beloved burro’s health worsened.
Perry had Cushing’s disease – a metabolic disorder – and laminitis, a painful and irreversible hoof condition. Over the last year, he had developed arthritis and later lost much of his ability to use his left hind leg, Kiratli said. He had received pain medication and acupuncture treatments, but over the past few weeks, Perry struggled to walk.
He still wanted to go on their usual walks, though, Kiratli said. Perry would wait at the gate, stamping and making noise to go out, though he could only make it short distances.
In the week before he died, his condition rapidly worsened.
“He really was just clearly in such pain,” Kiratli said.
In the last few days, a small sign with Perry’s name that hung beside signs for April and Buddy on the pasture’s gate was moved down to rest next to those of his three former companions. It now bears a black ribbon. Visitors have left flowers beside the mailbox.
Kiratli hopes to collect stories about Perry into a book. She and his other handlers also plan to plant a tree in Perry’s honor in the park near his pasture – to remember him there every Sunday as his companions walk there to greet their neighbors as he once did.
“To us, he wasn’t really the ‘Shrek’ donkey,” Kiratli said. “He was just Perry.”