PITTSFIELD (AP) – A runaway donkey named Jenny who eluded her owners for more than a month returned to captivity quietly and on her own Wednesday, with encouragement from a horse whisperer who had been working to earn her trust.

Jenny followed Karina Lewis into a three-sided corral at Mary Gaeta’s farm and waited patiently as Lewis and her partner erected the fourth side to complete the enclosure.

“We let things be her idea, and we didn’t force it,” Lewis told the Morning Sentinel newspaper of Waterville.

Jenny, believed to be the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey, had been on the lam since Jan. 18, enduring the coldest weather of the winter.

After a tranquilizer dart and tranquilizers in Jenny’s food had no effect, Gaeta sought help from Lewis, an equine behavior specialist, or horse whisperer, who spent time with the wayward donkey and built a relationship of trust.

“We spent a lot of cold days out there,” Lewis said. “I spent a lot of time just shivering on the ground and respecting her.”

The breakthrough came when Jenny began to follow Lewis, who walked through the corral area Tuesday with Jenny at her heels. That set the stage for Wednesday’s capture.

The temporary corral will be replaced by a sturdier pipe fence by the end of the weekend, Lewis said. “That will be a more permanent structure (Jenny) can’t jump or get hurt on,” she said.

Jenny has shown no apparent ill effects from her ordeal.

“She’s in very good health,” Lewis said. “She’s very cute and she’s just as smart as they come.”

Lewis believes Jenny was wandering around Gaeta’s 18-acre farm and 30 acres of surrounding woods and fields in search of her twin sibling who was sold separately from Jenny at an auction last fall.

The companion is living at a New Hampshire farm after being acquired by a rescue organization.

Lewis and her partner, Kirk Stanley, hope the two animals can be reunited at Gaeta’s farm.

“That sure would be neat if we could get her twin here,” Stanley said. “It would be a gift to her.”