Mule Update Post 127: Apparently leaving him alone for awhile was the secret?

[dungrulla]

Sal let me put his halter back on today. Two weeks after the first time I haltered him, which I now recognize I tried to do WAY too fast.

I broke it down into steps and it did in fact work. I had to alter my plan slightly:

-Put your nose in the noseband

At this point he would not let it go over his ears so I tried to put the rope for a rope halter over his neck. He wasn’t having it. I had to stop and back up. Instead we did:

-Let me throw an object over your neck

Once that was solid,

-If I pull on the rope, tip your head toward me

Then once that no longer confused or freaked him out,

-Let me do it with the halter

And once that was 100% solid it turned into ‘put your nose into the noseband while the halter is around your neck’ and I had him caught. I let him go and caught him four or five more times, then let him have his meal. And I’m noticing it’s way easier with this guy if I make everything very non-adversarial and just wait him out. He’s usually willing to try again if I stand there and stare at my phone, even if it takes him a few minutes to decide.

[dungrulla]

Went back today, haltered him three or four times, then clipped a lead rope. Led him three times to his food bowl which was clipped on the fence and back. Then let him have his food. He pretty willingly came with me so we seem to be turning some kind of corner.

[ravenclaw]

Sounds good! Like he’s getting to know you and he’s learning to trust you. Have you heard him bray?

[dungrulla]

He does it every time he sees someone outside if it’s been more than three minutes and they’ve failed to bring him food.

[eightpondfarm]

this was on my email list this morning:
https://www.twohorsetack.com/p-5612-flash-salebetter-than-leather-mule-bridle-without-noseband.aspx?mc_cid=71cbd23e32&mc_eid=fd0ec0ca0a

[dungrulla]

Things are still going well with Sal. It’s a lot of three steps forward one step back. We had a string of not so great days this week followed by one really good day. He’s a funny animal. I was out in the round pen with him and was asking him to approach me on the left laterally for a food reward. He wasn’t really sure what I was asking, and tried a few things, and so after awhile he left and went and stood in the catch pen because this is a behavior that usually results in a reward. I gave him one, because I’m honestly more interested right now in him being willing to offer me a behavior and try than him guessing correctly on the first try with a new behavior. Letting him guess ‘correctly’ will help build his confidence and make him less afraid to try–a lot of scared animals are afraid to offer any behavior in case it results in a negative consequence.

The next time we try that I’ll be a little more stringent, or I’ll shut the catch pen door.

He’s in with my thoroughbred currently because we had the other horse leave the property. He’s very happy with this, though the thoroughbred really doesn’t care about him very much at all. Poor guy. It’s like he has an annoying little brother he just tolerates. He’ll let him eat out of the same hay pile and follow him around and stuff, but my usually very buddy-sour thoroughbred doesn’t seem to mind being removed from the mule.

[Maythehorsebewithme]

I am enjoying this thread. Thank you for the update and please keep them coming.

[rockymouse]

I just found this thread today. Congratulations on your mule!

I’m gonna suggest something that I haven’t seen yet on this thread, which I recognize is sorta woo-woo: take a period of time (two weeks? a month?) to simply “be” with him in his space without asking anything of him.

I mean, take a lawn chair and sit in his pen and just…be. If you can, do this for an hour a day, but if you can only take five minutes on that particular day, then do that. Don’t touch him while you’re in there, or move closer. If he comes up to you and touches you, let him, but don’t offer to touch him.

Five minutes of doing nothing can feel like a long time. Ideally, you don’t have a book or a podcast or anything. You really are with him. If you can, meditate a little, or do breathing exercises. If he looks suddenly off to the left, you look left. If he sighs, you sigh. If he shifts and cocks a leg, you shift in your seat and relax.

In the mind of a mule (or donkey) slower is faster. Sal has gone through who-knows-what, and while he’s trying real hard to figure out and do what you ask, it might be interesting for you to see what happens after a period where you ask nothing of him at all. Nothing. It’s a trust building exercise for each of you.

Then in a month (or however long) pick up again his life lessons on leading/feet/grooming and so on. But from time to time for the rest of his life with you, occasionally sit in his pen with no objective other than breathing the same air together.

My source on this is my own experience with two donkeys. They were used very hard and scarred up from working on a Mexican candellia or fencing crew, then turned out (or escaped) onto a ranch, where they were eventually corralled and brought here. These burros had zero optimism regarding the presence of human beings. What worked the fastest, and best, with them was what I described above.

Have fun! Long ears are terrific and they’ll teach you a lot.

[dungrulla]

Haven’t done a lot the last few days because I’ve been sick with some sort of mystery virus. Just spending time during feeding. Sal has decided in the last few days he’s okay to be my husband’s friend too, now, and he (the mule, not my husband) led him into the catch pen with him and let him pet his shoulder and neck so that’s good.

I found a new, novel use for Sal. The other actual horse left our property to go back to my trainer, which meant my extremely, notoriously buddy sour thoroughbred gelding was alone. I stuck him out with Sal for six hours or so. He’s much less invested in Sal than he would be in another horse, and I didn’t give either of them time to get real attached.

Then I pulled Blues inside and left him inside for a day. Usually when we try this he calls back and forth to his friend endlessly and works himself into a lather…well the mule can’t call back so he gave up after a half hour and is now happily by himself outside.

I’ve been bringing him back into the round pen with the mule so I can spray him with fly spray, touch him, lead him around, feed him treats, and fuss over him where the mule can see. Maybe this helps, maybe it doesn’t, but at least he gets attention so I don’t think the thoroughbred minds.

[dungrulla]

We threw Blues out with the mule again to babysit last night after having the local lady who does equine body language work out. Turns out if you throw him out there and just observe for awhile, Sal will foal clack at him. Sal is four so this is unusual at his age. The consensus is the mule is probably very undersocialized and may have lost mom too early…but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it means a lot of what we’re dealing with probably amounts to baby brain, and I likely need to slow down a little.

It was easy to lose sight of the fact that he is just a baby. He probably needs an older gelding to show him how to horse right now so we’re going to let them stay together for at least part of the day. Fortunately Blues doesn’t seem to mind being on baby duty and is letting Sal do stuff he doesn’t let other horses do usually, like eat his food and shove into him.

[SLW]

@dungrulla

Adding another post…I think I might actually be a mule person. I haven’t had this animal that long, but I have to say I really appreciate his style. He’s not easy at all, and we’ve had a few days of one step forward two steps back even in the short month I’ve had him.

But I really like that he doesn’t do half the dumb, reactive stuff a baby horse does. He’s way less explosive. People who told me the threshold for handler error was way lower, you are correct, he has the potential to learn naughty things SO quickly. However balance that with the fact that he is actually far more predictable than a horse of the same age and handling experience. I find myself being fairly certain what he’s going to try next when he’s been presented with a new problem because he actually stops to think about his options instead of YOLOing himself into a gate/the fence/me.

Also, you know that thing young, green horses do where you present them with a new problem, they don’t get their way, and they start throwing a damn tantrum? And the tantrum is usually some degree of dangerous? Yeah, that doesn’t happen. He’s too smart for that. He finds some really ‘wow I can’t believe he thought of that’ ways to try to get around what he’s being asked, but he so far doesn’t actually win these kinds of arguments.

All in all I’m really enjoying working with this guy. My trainer hasn’t had to get involved yet, but we’ve got her in the wings if we need to. She already offered to steal him for awhile if we start struggling.

I’ve never worked with a mule but it sure reads like you are doing a fantastic job with Sal.

FWIW, I do have a standard donkey that I drive and when I bought her she had been handled but never worn a halter et al at age 3. You are dealing with 50% donkey so I’ll share a couple things I have learned:

Donkey’s don’t need/do repetition- once they have mastered the object that concerns them it’s not going to be an issue going forward whether it’s picking up their hooves or driving past waving flags. Same thing when I am driving her, if I’m working on a 20 meter circle I will get about 3 circles to introduce the change I am looking for. Once it clicks, it’s embedded. (see below)

Donkey’s don’t forget- one day while in the stall with mine I did not latch the swinging stall door, she pushed it and walked out. She test/checks the door most all the time now. One day early on she didn’t want to be hosed off so she put her nose on the ground, turn to the right and “ran away with me at a walk” re: she drug my butt through the stable yard at the end of the lead rope. It took quite a few months to stop that nonsense but she never forgot the “day she won”.

Donkey’s need time- if I encountered a delay/problem/unforeseen issue then my entire world stops right then and there (throw away the wrist watch!) until I can resolve the issue to a mutually agreeable outcome. The reason, see above “donkey’s don’t forget” so I can’t end the session on her terms. If I am patient it pays off in spades!!

Donkey’s insist on trust- I can walk into any barn and deal with a horse, sluggish or rouge, on some level. A donkey is indifferent to our needs and if they don’t trust you (think trust the way your dog trust you) then they will just stand there, immune to flogging, swearing and a general melt down by a human. When they trust you they will give you everything they have with swag and cheery disposition!

Good luck going forward!

[dungrulla]

I haven’t updated since the beginning of August, wow, time got away from me!

Sal is doing well. He’s still learning to lead and we are still dealing with a nasty bolting habit I found out he had before he got to my place. We’re managing and the behavior happens less and less. Today I got him lunging on the line for the first time, switching directions, without trying to rip the line out of my hands. He’s still a pretty anxious guy but he’s slowly starting to come down. I’m still the only person that can reliably catch him, though.

The eventual plan for Sal was always to break him to cart because my husband loves to drive, if we thought he’d be amenable. This isn’t something my trainer does, but she has sent a few horses–including my husband’s very favorite driving pony–to a local amish man who mostly breaks horses for English people. He treats his stock very kindly and we agree with his methodologies. We know some horses that are there with them now and they always come back in great shape and not afraid of anything. He’ll also tell you if he thinks it’s not going to pan out fairly early on so you aren’t wasting time and money keeping horses with him that will never make good buggy horses.

I love Sal and I’m not in over my head at this point yet. Trainer says I’m doing a phenomenal job actually. What I am is tired. He is very strong, and I am not very large. I have rheumatoid arthrits. I’m ending every day sore, which I don’t really mind…my back pain has actually gotten much better because I’ve put on a lot of upper body and core muscle working with him. But it’s exhausting.

I was asked if I thought a high probability of a repetitive strain injury to my shoulders was worth saving the cost of sending him to this guy…and the cost isn’t very high. I’m going to go with my trainer next weekend and meet this gentleman and have a talk with him and see if he’s willing to take the mule now for a month, if nothing else because he can probably get him leading well a lot faster than I can, and because then he can evaluate whether or not he thinks he’d make a good cart horse.

He’s going to go to my trainer’s place for the winter regardless just because it makes my life a bit easier. My trainer COULD break him to lead faster than me and DOES know how to work with mules, but the Amish guy works with mules all the time (trainer only does so sporadically as mules are not super popular around here) and can give us a good evaluation as to his buggy mule potential.

So that’s where we’re at.

[dungrulla]

I’ve been made a fool of.

Like two days after I said I was sending him off I had three sessions in a row of perfect leading in a regular halter with a short lead rope. I am now getting consistent lunging with the flag both directions without attempts to yank my arms out of the sockets. APPARENTLY he heard he was going to boot camp and it was enough to spook him into compliance, even though he doesn’t speak English and likely doesn’t know what ‘boot camp’ is.

He’s still getting sent off. I don’t know how to break to cart. If nothing else he’s going to trainer’s place for the winter because she has better facilities than I do.

[skydy]

Thanks for the updates.

Of course, now I’ll have The Erie Canal song in my head for who knows how long. That’s OK, it’s a good song.

[dungrulla]

Sal is no longer exclusively confined to the round pen.

My trainer pushed me to take him out and said we would be fine. I was worried we would not be fine. I had my husband standing by with a flag to chase him back in just in case we were not fine. I put a control device on the halter (just a piece of soft rope that tightens only slightly on his nose if he pulls back, not hard) and proceeded to lead him out of the pen. It was a little nerve wracking. There was always the worry he would pull back.

He did not pull back. He was fine. He proceeded quietly to the patience pole and let me tie him up. I gave him a few bites of feed, then let him go.

He wandered round and round the patience pole a few times, then proceeded to decide it was time to take a nap. I tied up a bucket of water for him and left him there for a few hours.

That night I put him inside the barn for the first time. He was fine until he realized he could see other horses but not get to them. He proceeded to try to climb the walls of the stall, apparently all night long because I found him a bit cut up and sweaty in the morning. He would probably get over this eventually but I’ll wait until he’s in a facility with stalls that have floor-to-ceiling walls so he’s not tempted to try to stick his head over.

I put him back on the patience pole and we had some lessons on grooming tools and fly spray, now that he can’t actually pull away from me. He’s discovered currycombs are actually a very nice invention, and got a thorough scrubdown with one, which he quite enjoyed after he realized I wasn’t carrying a hot branding iron or trying to douse him in acid.

Anyway last night he spent all night on the patience pole, because he seems to be much happier there than in a stall. He was provided with the necessities, we didn’t starve him or leave him without water. He…was absolutely fine, actually. When I got back out this morning he brayed at me in greeting and then followed me nicely back into the round pen for his breakfast, on a regular halter with no control devices.

I’ll be tying him back out some tomorrow, probably, and doing more grooming tools and picking up of feet work. I want him to have some time to think about his lessons.

[dungrulla]

Update: no amish until the springtime. My trainer went to talk to the gentleman about what we had and where we’ve gotten. His answer was actually that we’ve made a lot of progress in a short time and that he feels I’d just be wasting money sending him to the amish to be halter broke, but he’d be happy to take him in the spring to learn to drive a cart.

I wish I’d put him on the pole a long time ago. I switched who was in what stall so he has a friend near him, and now he’s much quieter in there. When the horses go out for the day, he goes out to the pole. He actually really likes the pole, and I can tell that because he meets me at the stall door and puts his head down so I can halter him. I think it’s that he can see everything going on around him. He’s always left out there with water, and every few hours we offer him something to eat. So that’s where he gets turned out every day right now before he comes inside and goes back in a stall.

He’s going to my trainer’s either today or next week depending on how much it rains today, but either way is fine since he’s leading from the barn to the post and back on a regular lead and halter without a problem. And he’s getting very eager for his daily full rubdown with a curry, too.

[candyappy]

@dungrulla

Anyway last night he spent all night on the patience pole

Why are you tying him up all night? Mules are very intelligent and he is standing calmly tied to the pole already( like you want) .

I don’t see the need to tie him for hours on end. What are you trying to accomplish with that? Just asking because it seems odd to me since he stands willingly already , which is usually the goal of tying.

[SLW]

@candyappy

@dungrulla

Anyway last night he spent all night on the patience pole

Why are you tying him up all night? Mules are very intelligent and he is standing calmly tied to the pole already( like you want) .

I don’t see the need to tie him for hours on end. What are you trying to accomplish with that? Just asking because it seems odd to me since he stands willingly already , which is usually the goal of tying.

A western trainer friend explained it like this to me: Control the horses feet and you control their time. They are “working” when tied and not free to wander and dilly around making their own choices. I’ve got 6 horses to ride every day but I can only ride one at a time but I can have them all working. After morning feeding 3 are saddled and tied around the arena, the other 3 are tied around the barn with hay/water available. After the first 3 are ridden the horses are switched in position. By 2-3:00 all horses have “worked” a 6 to 7 hour day and then are turned out to be a horse.

I have used tie training but only during the day when I’m home and able to keep an eye on them. When done correctly it makes a positive difference.

[candyappy]

@SLW

I have used tie training but only during the day when I’m home and able to keep an eye on them. When done correctly it makes a positive difference.

I agree. I also tied all mine ( 2 horses 1 mule) while I worked the others but it wasn’t overnight or for many, many hours at a time and they were somewhat supervised ( i was riding nearby).

[dungrulla]

As for the stall anxiety…not sure what had him worked up the first time but what we did was put the horses so the one that wants nothing to do with him is next to him (but can’t touch him becauw of the grate on that wall) and the one he loves and that tolerates him is across the aisle. We supervised through a crack in the barn door for half an hour and he was a little fidgety but then settled down. We checked again an hour later and then two hours later and he was fine and has been fine since.