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

[dungrulla]

D*mn it I did not mean to do that. Text below:

He was being destructive and potentially a danger to himself in the stall. I put him out on the pole and he was much happier on there so I left him there with food and water. Not much different than a tie stall tbh and horses and mules also get high-lined overnight in plenty of places. The next night we solved the problem by slightly changing where everyone was stalled but i left him on the pole because it was a safe contained location. The pole has a swivel on top so he can move around however he feels like and hotwalk himself if he wants.

He does enjoy being on the pole for some reason? He will happily let me catch him in his stall or in the round pen if he knows he’s going to the pole. I suspect because it’s central to the property he can see everything going on and might find security in that. In the intervening days he’s only been out there during the day while we are doing farm things with food and water offered or freely available. He also goes there to get groomed but now that we have the stall anxiety fixed he’s in at night.

You might ask why he’s not in the round pen. Well he is sometimes. But he paces in the round pen. He stands quietly and looks around or eats on the pole. I don’t get it either. I don’t trust him in three acre group turnout yet. He could pace if he wants, he can walk in a good sized circle on the pole still, he just doesn’t.

[dungrulla]

Basically if he didn’t seem to like being out on the pole I wouldn’t just tie him out there and ditch him, that seems kind of mean…so I guess the goal is to contain him somewhere he likes and seems relaxed? I wasn’t mad at him or anything when I left him there.

In other, somewhat related news, I picked his foot up today without a fight. Only one foot, but it’s progress. He was good about it so I just picked up the one and then gave him a pat and brought him in for dinner. It poured rain out all day yesterday so no pickup.

[dungrulla]

Update: Sal went to my trainer’s yesterday. It wasn’t as big a production as I thought. He didn’t want to load on the trailer initially so we pulled it right up to the barn door, so the aisle led directly onto the trailer. I stood inside with him on a longline and waited him out. A lot of working with him is just allowing him to process, which might take five minutes if it’s a newish thing. Once he’d had time to evaluate that the trailer was (probably) safe, he walked right on with me, let me tie him up inside, and then stood quietly eating out of his hay bag while I shut the door.

Unloading was similarly boring. I untied him and walked him into the barn on a regular ten-foot lead rope and halter. He didn’t want to go into a stall because they’re dark inside and less open than the ones on my barn. I stood inside on the end of the lead, put some light pressure on the halter, and waited him out. He danced around a bit but didn’t try to stiff-neck me or get away, and once he’d had time to process he walked in and went to eating his hay.

I think it actually does make a difference if I’m in whatever space he’s worried about, because if I’m standing in there clearly it’s probably safe. And unlike a horse, trying to PULL him into the new space doesn’t accomplish much. I can get much better results by putting light pressure on the lead and just waiting for him to decide to try. And he always does if I wait.

I gave him a good brushing and then left him alone for the evening.

[Texarkana]

He sounds like my donkey. Loading, walking into new “scary” places like dark stalls, etc. You can’t pull or force her anywhere, but if you just stand there and wait it out, she usually will go right in. Sometimes if it’s really scary I might bring a dressage whip, not to force her but to give her the occasional light tap on the rump in addition to little tugs on the halter to remind her we aren’t just standing around for no reason.

I’m pretty particular about who handles her for that reason, because people who only work with horses often think they can drag her or force her to do something. You probably won’t succeed, but if you do, she will remember it was a bad experience and be ten times worse the next time. Yet if you keep things positive and do them in her time, she’ll walk through fire for you, metaphorically.

[Mukluks]

I got an old mule his name is SAL
15 miles on the Erie Canal.
He’s a good old worker
and a good old pal
15 miles on the Erie Canal
We’ve pulled some barges in our day
Filled with lumber coal and hay
and we know every inch of the way
(that’s all I know from memory)

here we go

ERIE CANAL SONG

[dungrulla]

We’re doing pretty good at the barn. He’s going in and out of the round pen and barn with no problems. I led him around and hung out with him in the arena a little on Tuesday. He’s also consistently picking up both front feet now, which I appreciate.

I think he’s gonna be a nice little guy soon. He just needs the winter.

[dungrulla]

Update: sal is at my trainer’s. He’s been doing really well and is very handleable now…if you’re me. He’s still getting used to other people and hasn’t decided yet that my trainer is his friend. We’re getting there.

[J-Lu]

Do you plan to ride him? My good friend has a mule who was started by a guy who is an expert in starting horses. This mule was difficult. My friend was part of a Facebook group of a guy who claimed his Mule saddles, bridles and stuff worked for mules. My friend and the trainer rolled their eyes greatly. My friend purchased the saddle, bridle and breast plate from this guy and the trainer though the mule went night-and-day different. It was more forward and more willing to accept training. He was 100% skeptical - we all were. His stuff isn’t cheap, though.

I can find the name of the online trainer guy if you want.

[RSEventer]

Be warned about trying so-called mule saddles- my mule has gone fine in both dressage and jumping saddle- I took him to a saddle fitter of mules and he bucked me off bad. Might have been the back girth- I don’t know. He claimed that these Brazilian saddles were made specifically for mules. Not mine!
It was very scary!

[dungrulla]

You are probably talking about Steve Edwards, who is a very nice man with some good advice. He also has some not so good advice. He’s not anywhere near ready to be broke to saddle yet, and honestly he’s probably going to go get amish broke to cart before we do that. I’ll think about buying a saddle when he’s ready to be saddle broke.

[dungrulla]

Update:

Sal’s doing pretty great. He’s consistently lunging and yielding his hinds on the end of the lead, and is being exposed to more friends. The barn has a 16 year old that works with us who has been working with him a bit, she’s having a rough time lately and so I really enjoy seeing them make friends with each other.

The bolting problem is mostly resolved, but I did notice if he’s unsure about you and you keep asking him for stuff, OR he’s not being given the patience he thinks he’s owed he will just sort of turn and slowly walk away from the offender I’d LIKE him not to do this but it is very funny to watch.

[rubygirl1968]

It’s better than running.

[dungrulla]

We had a bunch of new experiences this week. He’s also decided I’m cool enough to follow around the round pen and that other people probably aren’t going to eat mules. I half expected him to spook at the mounting block as I moved it over to get on my gelding then half expected him to wig out when I swung a leg up to get on but he did not care. I think he was too distracted trying to make friends with my gelding, who was uninterested in dealing with babies while he’s working.

He did well until I got distracted talking to a friend and dropped the rope. He proceeded to trot at a moderate pace away from me so I, being nothing if not lazy, went to go after him on my gelding in the hopes I could catch him without having to get down. Which went okay for awhile until Sal decided they were playing a great game and started bucking and kicking out before sprinting away tossing his head, as you do when you’re four and want to play. No contact was made, I got off and went to get him on foot instead after heavily rolling my eyes. I just left my gelding where he was. I could literally leave my gelding in the aisle with the doors open, go get lunch, come back, and he’d still be there so I wasn’t worried about it in a closed arena.

Sidenote, my gelding is a saint and puts up with so much BS it’s unreal.

On Saturday he wore a bareback pad. He was sort of worried about it because he’s never seen one before but once I got it cinched up he was like ‘oh, that’s it? Okay’ and didn’t care anymore. He made no effort to do anything naughty while I tied the strange item around his midsection.

Oh, and yes, the mule I was having trouble leading a month ago because he was bolting and ripping the lead rope out of my hands is being ponied in a breakaway halter.

[Libby2563]

When I started reading your latest post I was thinking we were quite overdue for some photos of Sal…then down I scrolled and bam! Thank you. And well done bringing him along!

[dungrulla]

Have some more photos.

We had a busy Tuesday night. He’s not even thinking about being ready to ride, but he learned about standing next to the mounting block. I pet all along his back and leaned on him a little. He thought I’d lost my mind but was generally tolerant of this exercise.

More and more often, his reaction to strange things seems to have gone from ‘I’m afraid and want to run’ to ‘woman you have clearly finally gone crazy’ and I’ll take the second. Occasionally he tests still but kind of just gives up when he hits the end of the halter usually. Slowly walking away from whoever’s offended him is still a thing, but he mostly does that to strangers.

I fixed the halter after the photo was taken. It slipped.

[wildlifer]

Thank you, I am really enjoying your updates. I confess it makes me laugh out loud picturing him slowly walking away from a stranger, muttering “nooope…”

[dungrulla]

He’s a real party animal.

"https://www.tiktok.com/@quinnieminnieminnie/video/7164542963169791278

[dungrulla]

Sal update:

So I accidentally taught the mule to three-legged hobble.

It wasn’t really intentional because he in my mind wasn’t ‘let’s learn about restraints’ ready yet. But I’ve been using a rope looped around his ankle to teach him to pick his feet up–it’s harder for him to yank a rope back out of my hands than to yank his foot out of my hands directly. I never did this for longer than it took me to pick his feet up and maybe pick them out.

I was talking to my trainer and she mentioned wanting to hobble break him eventually. Well I thought about it, and was like ‘I bet he’ll let me just hold his front leg up.’

So I went and got a piece of soft rope, looped it around his ankle, ‘tied’ his front leg up. By that I mean I held it up in the air, he absolutely could have escaped if he wanted to, he wasn’t actually restrained. He stood there. About went to sleep. Didn’t really care at all about the fact that I had taken away one of his feet. After awhile I gave his foot back and we went back to hanging around the arena.

I honestly think he’s got a really nice brain. I got lucky with his brain. I’d rather have this mule with a nice brain than a handled one that’s an asshole.

[dungrulla]

I haven’t posted about Sal in awhile.

He’s doing really well! Getting to tolerate more things. He’d kind of turned into an overgrown golden retriever with people he likes–his attitude is somewhere between ‘what doing??’ and ‘can I eat that?’. Still leery of strangers and anyone he doesn’t know too well yet. He’s not dangerous, but won’t cooperate like he will for a friend he trusts. Some mornings he needs mild convincing he should work today but once you’ve got him turned onto you he’s actually pretty easy to work with. He’s smart enough to put two and two together that if you have food, he might be able to get some if he does what you ask him.

He mostly self-maintained (was kept out on hard ground) for awhile, but now he needs a real trim vs putting his feet on the stand and rasping his toes a little to get him used to the feeling like I’ve been doing. I’ll probably wind up just rasping every day or two for a couple weeks because we’re trying to avoid having to sedate him and I really don’t think he’s gonna let the farrier play with his feet. He doesn’t know the farrier. I don’t have any problem handling his feet but they’re iron hard and I don’t want to stand there for an hour with a rasp, my back won’t like it.

It’s funny because now that he kind of trusts me I sometimes expect something new to him to be this big production…and then it’s a non-event. The first time I put his feet on the farrier stand and ran a rasp over them he was like ‘I don’t know what’s suddenly gotten into you, but okay.’

Our current plan is to send him from trainer’s barn back to my place to continue to work on fundamentals and sort of sit with what he’s learned over the summer. He’s very strongly bonded to me and at this point will let me do basically anything to him. Trainer suspects he’s going to end up a fairly one-person animal, which is fine. Next summer we’ll saddle break him, which will be after having had him a year and a half, two years.

I’m okay with that. He’s still only 4ish. He is very much a baby mentally and we’re in no rush. He’s come a long way from a feral animal I couldn’t get within five feet of which is how he came in last June.

He IS very cute. And he keeps getting taller. I have no idea where the hell all those legs came from but he has to be close to 15.2 now.

[equinelibrium]

Thanks for updating us! I’ve enjoyed following your journey with Sal. He’s looking very grown up!