Ha! Ha!
Nightmoves
What if the mule you come across to train, just plain doesn’t like you or your hubby, but may like the most unlikely person that may come to your barn! It isn’t always automatic. It may help if you smell more like a mare than a gelding, they tend to always like mares. My quarterhorse mare acted “superior” to the mules, but they adored her.
And, would you be able to “train” the “he/she just hates dogs” out of your training subject? Some mules perceive the small animal as a threat, and that is the instinctive hangover from “the wild”?
For myself the woman in the family, the one that feeds, cleans, and is on the job 24/7, as opposed to husband,who is around far less…when husband does appear at the barn it is ALL Hail to the Chief as far as the mules are concerned. Husband walks on water…what do you want master? A reprimand from him goes 100 times farther than it does from me. The herd ranking order is recognized across species.
I do notice if I get upset they are on to it quickly and ears go back to position “what is the problem she is having”. Very sensitive to any yelling. Their response is to ‘clear the area’.
And, they are very good at disappearing in thin air, or sneaking up behind you. I don’t know. One lady wrote a book and called it
“In the company of mules” . That experience, in their company is just special, I wanted to say ‘like rarefied air’, but someone might say, it was just gas! Everytime I sit out side on the patio, our mini mules have free range, the two of mine come and stand next to my chair for as long as I am there.
Kit Carson was the courier to Washington DC from the west…Nevada, Calif., and it was written he always rode a mule because they alerted him, key wording, “alerted him” to danger up ahead. Not, I won’t go farther, but, “there is something up ahead, so take caution” be safe and wait and see what it is…cougar? bear? Indians? people coming along the trail? You have to read them, it’s a tool, you don’t train that out of them, they train you how to use their skills.
http://community.webshots.com/album/569618388zNszbD
Our drafts are for sale, they deserve a real job to do, and my husband and myself are getting too old to handle the harness, and drive them.
Sorry if I go to adnauseum about the mules…working with them has been the most rewarding experience of my life with equines.
Also, a smart horse can be wayyyyyyy more difficult than a horse with average intelligence so if mules are generally smarter I understand completely.
