As I begin my Zoom chat with Ron King, co-founder of Oscar’s Place Adoption Center & Sanctuary, a friendly face nudges into the screen: a donkey. She’s named Grace, like me. “I did not do that on purpose,” King promises. “The reason she’s in here is because she’s so sweet.”
It’s a fitting beginning to a conversation about Donkey King, a docuseries that purports to follow King and the team at Oscar’s Place but is really all about the animals. “I discovered my life’s joy in donkeys, and I really want to share that with people,” says King, a 56-year-old former media executive. He likens the show, which premieres Jan. 3 on ABC, to “the Ted Lasso of reality television.”
King found donkeys by chance. Having left his previous career, he was deciding what to do with his next chapter when he stumbled upon a TikTok about donkeys being auctioned for slaughter. He was so moved, he decided to make protecting donkeys his mission, helping to launch Oscar’s Place in 2021. Today, it spans two locations in Mendocino County, California.
The organization helps donkeys like Grace, who was still nursing when her mom, Lucille, was nearly auctioned off for her hide. Thanks to Oscar’s Place, Lucille, Grace, and her two sisters are now living happily in Bodega Bay. “They’re gonna all go together and stay together for the rest of their lives — a mom and her three daughters,” King says proudly.
Below, King opens up about running Oscar’s Place, his unexpected career path, and what you might not know about donkeys.
I feel like there’s a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from your career pivot. It takes courage and creativity to be like “I can make this switch, and I can help these donkeys.”
I don’t want to take too much credit for having the courage to make a big life change because complete serendipity just happened. I ran out of options — I had aged out of the job that I was in. I get enough Botox that sometimes I convince myself I’m not aged out, but I aged out. I started to panic and spend my savings, and no one would hire me. I was holding on for dear life, for what my next step would be. And it was only when I let go of that, and I got out of the way, and I just let life happen, that I discovered this.
My best friend is a woman named Evelyn Webster, and she’d been asking me for years what brings me joy. I was like, “Girl, I fly first class; I sit next to Donatella Versace at the Versace show; I have a Mercedes AMG.” I wasn’t being a douchebag on purpose — I really thought that that’s what it was. And it was only when I moved to Hopland [the town where Oscar’s Place is] that I was like, “I think there’s a difference between things that I enjoy and things that bring me joy.” And when I looked back at my life, at the three times I felt the most joy, I was having an impact on something outside of myself.
What would viewers be surprised to learn about donkeys?
How emotional they are. Emotions live in the limbic system part of our brain, and a donkey’s and a human’s limbic system are the same size. So they have a very big capacity for emotion, which is why families stick together and why when my donkey, Viejo, sees me, he brays and comes running across the pasture.
There’s so much surprise and delight that comes from these animals, and we really wanted to capture that on screen. If this were a horse rescue, I don’t think it would work. Horses are amazing. They’re majestic and wonderful creatures, but there’s no surprise and delight — you already know that about horses.
What have you learned about yourself through this experience?
I like donkeys better than humans. My best friend is Viejo. Oftentimes, people say, “Oh, I wouldn’t admit that.” And I don’t find that embarrassing at all. I also learned — this is going to sound like another egotistical statement — I’m more compassionate than I thought I was. It’s only after living here and doing really important things that I was like, “Oh, when I missed my deadline, or misspelled something in an email, or didn’t hit my numbers, everything was just fine.” It was a great realization.
It doesn’t really matter that I can command a room. It matters that I care. And I just didn’t realize how much I cared.
How can viewers support the donkeys?
The absolute most helpful thing you could do is to go to DonkeyKing.com and sponsor a donkey and become a guardian. If you want to volunteer at a local donkey shelter, or a local animal shelter, or if you want to support other donkey rescues, or even just share that you enjoyed the show, it would be incredibly helpful. Reposts and shares are just as important to us as donations. I would love to get feedback that I was able to brighten your day a little bit.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
