MULE TALK! PODCAST: Turning Fear Into Curiosity
Turning Fear Into Curiosity –
- Leading training on the obstacle course is your equine’s initial exposure to real fear.
- Use the “O.A.T.S.” approach to your training.
- Observe – Approach – Touch – Sigh.
- Allow your equine time to think and process the information in order to move forward in his training.
- Your equine will learn to be attentive, patient, and confident about moving through various obstacles, such as: ground poles, tires, the bridge, stopping at a mailbox, walking through a tractor tire, and backing through straight and parallel poles.
- All movements will become purposeful, and he will learn to remain attentive to you and to respond promptly during his lessons.
Learn more on Mule Talk podcast.
The modern contemporary mule of the late 1970s has emerged as a fine saddle, driving and pack animal. No longer does he come from exclusively low grade mares. With the upgrading of mule breeding, the mule is a new, gentle and versatile animal capable of performing well in all forms of equine athletics. He can do cow work, work and pleasure driving, packing, jumping and is better suited for long trails, yet he still possesses all the traits that have made mules popular throughout the centuries: a willingness to work, an easy keeper, more resistance to parasites and disease, extremely surefooted and his indubitable intelligence that is often confused with stubbornness.
particular kind of horse to match the desired ability. A mule out of any breed of horse will be stronger and more durable than the horse out of which he came.
With the coming of the industrial age, their uses were minimized and they were faced with the possibility of extinction in the march of progress. Today, through the persistent determination of mule enthusiasts, mules are once again emerging as a conceivable asset to our economy and a unique form of athletic achievement and entertainment.
Even the army has conceded that mules could make their contribution to the economy through their use in mountain light infantry divisions. The only problem that arises is educating people on mule psychology so that they can train them properly.
Yesterday’s mules sturdy and strong
WEAVERVILLE, N.C. — After Helene isolated western North Carolina communities with landslides, flash flooding and road damage good Samaritans have had to find creative ways to bring in much-needed supplies.
“We will be setting up a staging area and beginning to assist this afternoon,” they wrote on Monday, “and will be bringing up additional loads of supplies once mules are in place!”
Mountain Mule Packer Ranch is based out of Mount Ulla, which is located between Lake Norman and Salisbury in North Carolina. They have been using their Facebook page to announce when they will be at the Food Lion, located at 11745 Statesville Blvd. in Cleveland, NC, to collect donations.
The Mountain Mule Packer Ranch partnered with the Cajun Navy, another group of civilian volunteers, to deliver insulin to a family on Monday, according to their Facebook posts.
8:30am update 10/1/24 Mike and the mule team made it to their staging area in Montreat yesterday and have already been helpful to families in need! They will be doing all they can in Black Mountain today. Thankful to Five 11’s Livestock Hauling for offering help in hauling mules so we could bring more supplies up! And appreciate being able to help support Cajun Navy 2016 on their efforts as well!
The team here at the ranch will be shopping for more supplies today, to restock them tomorrow! We appreciate the huge outpouring of requests on how to get supplies to us. Because of the conditions in the mountains and the way the team will be moving around, that is hard to coordinate. I will bring a trailer to the Food Lion Shopping Center this afternoon at approximately 4pm if there is anyone in the area that wants to add to the supplies we are bringing! Please let me know if this is something you’d like to do, and we can be there between 4-5pm today to collect what you have!! God bless you all, and thank you for keeping prayers lifted up!!
It is important to know the differences among rewards, treats, coaxing and bribing in order to correctly employ the reward system of training called Behavior Modification.
Remember to give your equine a reward only after a specific task you’ve asked for has been performed—or even an assimilation of that task, which means the taking of baby steps toward completing the task. The reward should be given immediately upon completion of the task and then your equine should be allowed time to enjoy his reward before moving on to the next task. If your equine is given a food reward for only good behaviors, he will be more likely to continue to repeat only those behaviors for which he is rewarded and you can begin to “shape” his behavior in a positive way.
As an example of coaxing, you can extend a handful of crimped oats to lure your equine closer to an obstacle, but he should not receive the handful of oats until he completes the required task or travels enough distance toward the obstacle to deserve a reward. If your equine just won’t come all the way to an obstacle, even to get a reward, you can modify the task by asking your equine to just come closer to the obstacle and then halt (but without backing up). Then the reward can be dispensed for the partial approach and halt, because these actions still qualify as an assimilation of the bigger task that is to be completed. If he backs away at all, he should not be rewarded and you will have to go back to the beginning of the task and try again.
Between lessons, let your equine have a day off in order to rest. When you return for the second lesson, tie him to the fence and review with him your last lesson from the very beginning. He should remember the previous lessons and be willing to follow you right away in order to be rewarded. If he seems willing to follow your lead, untie him and ask him to take a step forward just as he did before, but this time, instead of dispensing the food reward when he takes the first step forward, simply say, “Good boy” and ask him for a second step forward before you reward him with the oats. You will now be progressing from one step forward before you reward to two steps forward before you reward.
This is how you begin with leading training, and also how you should proceed with all the new things that you will be teaching your equine. In the beginning of leading training, he gets rewarded for even an assimilation of what you’re asking. For example, when you get to negotiating obstacles, your goal may be to cross over a bridge, but when your equine sees the bridge ahead, he may stop or start backing up. At this point, allow him to back until he stops. Go back and repeat the steps you did prior to approaching the obstacle. Then, asking for only one step at a time, proceed as you did during his flatwork leading training toward the bridge, rewarding each step he takes. Tell him verbally how brave he is and continue to reward any steps he takes toward the obstacle before proceeding forward. Remember to stop at any interval where he becomes tense, ask for one more step to be rewarded, and then allow him to settle and refocus before asking any more from him.
Now you no longer need to reward for one foot on the bridge. This is called “fading or phasing out” the reward for a previous behavior (one step), while introducing the new behavior of walking to the bridge, halting and then putting two front feet up on the bridge. Wait for a moment for him to chew his reward and then ask him to continue onto the bridge, stop and square up with four feet on the bridge and reward. If he does not comply and won’t stop on the bridge, just go back to the beginning, approach the bridge as described and try again until he stops to be rewarded with all four feet placed squarely on the bridge
The last step over the bridge is to bring the hind feet off the bridge, stop and square up one more time before he gets rewarded. This does two things. It causes your equine to be attentive to the number of steps you are asking and it puts him in good posture at each stage so that his body will develop properly. In future lessons, the steps in the approach to the bridge no longer need to be rewarded and as he becomes more attentive, he will learn to stop any time you ask and wait for your cue to proceed. After several months of this meticulous attention to these detailed steps, he will not necessarily need to be rewarded with the food reward each time—a pat on the neck and kind words of support should be sufficient. Rewards can then be given for whole “blocks” of steps when he successfully completes them.
In the natural progression of correct training—including during mounting training—your equine should also be getting rewarded when you’re first getting him used to your being on-board. Give him the oats reward for standing still while you attempt to mount (i.e., walking toward him, holding the left rein and reaching for the saddle horn), and then when you hang from each side of his body with a foot in the stirrup (first on one side and then on the other side), and, finally, from each side of his body while you sit on his back. When you ask him to turn his head to take the oats from your hand, you can be sure his attention will be on you because this action will force him to look at you in order to receive his oats. Then reward him again for standing still as you dismount. Consequently, by the time you actually get to the point of riding in an open arena, he’s been rewarded for having you on his back and for behaving well through all the exercises demanded from him during round pen training.
The hinny is a somewhat slower and more meticulous mover than the mule, but a laid back mule can offer similar characteristics. The hinny inherits his way of going from the jennet as does the mule, which tends to be a little faster, more energetic and more agile—like his dam, the mare. The hinny, because of his meticulous way of going, is actually better in very steep, rocky terrain and, especially, in loose rock, and will not tire as quickly as a mule. Hinnies are the preferred equine in Mexico and Central America due to their diligence when working. Gaited hinnies are preferable in this kind of terrain where there is little opportunity to gallop because they have a smooth, more ground-covering gait and offer a smooth ride.
The hooves of a hinny tend to be more donkey-like—narrow, oval and more upright—where the hooves of a mule will look more horse-like; a little rounder (although still oval), with slightly more angle than the donkey hoof, but not as flat, round and angled as the horse’s hoof. On both hinnies and mules, the hooves should be trimmed more upright and the heels should be left longer than the hooves of the horse.
come in more colors than a horse, even an Appaloosa. Mule’s conformation falls somewhere in between that of the donkey and that of the horse. Mules inherit the best traits from both its sire and its dam. Mules get their athletic ability from the horse, while strength and intelligence come from the donkey. Mules today come in all shapes sizes and colors, from minis under 50 pounds to maxis over 1000 pounds, and in many different colors. Mules from Appaloosa mares produce wildly colored mules, much like their Appaloosa horse relatives, but with even wilder skewed colors. The Appaloosa color is produced by a complex of genes known as the Leopard Complex (Lp). Mares homozygous for the Lp gene bred to any color donkey will produce an Appaloosa colored mule.
Zorse, Golden Zebra, Zebra mule, Zebrule: zebra father + horse mother
The embryo was from a Paso Fino Mare called La Querencia and the Paso Fino Donkey Cosaco XVI de Villa Luz. The pregnancy was 11 months and the delivery was normal with no complications, the mule knew exactly what to do and behaved as an expert mother even if it was her first time! The baby is a female and it was called “La bien querida” (The much loved).
Even if most mules are sterile, they have a maternal instinct, we had a case in our Farm where the mule La Rosa de Villa Luz, fell in love with a foal of a mare and tried to steal it, she kept very close to it for weeks, showing angry signs to the mare and a maternal attitude to the foal; when the mare and the foal were transferred to another pasture, the mule brayed for days. We have also been told of another case where an orphan foal was adopted by a mule and after two days the mule started producing milk!
In Morocco, a mare mule produced a male foal that was 75 percent donkey and 25 percent horse (i.e., she passed on a mixture of genes instead of passing on her maternal chromosomes in the expected way). Miracle mule ‘confirmed’ DNA tests have confirmed that a Moroccan mule did give birth to a foal. Veterinary experts say the foal’s father was a donkey and its mother a true mule. “The foal inherited a mixture of horse and donkey chromosomes via the mother’s ovum ”
In 1995, a group from the Federal University of Minas Gerais described a female mule that was pregnant for a seventh time, having previously produced two donkey sires, two foals with the typical 63 chromosomes of mules, and several horse stallions that had produced four foals. The three of the latter available for testing each bore 64 horse-like chromosomes. These foals phenotypically resembled horses, though they bore markings absent from the sire’s known lineages, and one had ears noticeably longer than those typical of her sire’s breed. The elder two horse-like foals had proved fertile at the time of publication, with their progeny being typical of horses.
Blood samples and other “technical testing” have verified that Blue Moon is indeed the first scientifically verified mule colt foaled from a molly mule. In mid-August, the Sylvesters received word from Dr. Benirschke with the big news: Krause is a true molly mule with 63 chromosomes and her new son Blue Moon is also a mule with 63 chromosomes. The father and grandfather is a verified jackass with 62 chromosomes, and the grandmother a true female horse with 64 chromosomes.
SPOKANE – Two weeks after announcing the birth of the first cloned mule, the same research team said a second cloned mule with identical DNA has been born. The mule, named Utah Pioneer, was born natural and unassisted Monday morning. The male foal joined his brother, Idaho Gem, whose birth was announced May 29, as the only equine clones in the world. The clones are the result of work by researchers Gordon Woods and Dirk Vanderwall from the
dominance in a non-threatening manner. This is accomplished through the use of a great deal of positive reinforcement early on, including gentle touches, a reassuring voice and lots of rewards for good behavior. Expressions of disapproval should be kept to a minimum and the negative reinforcement for bad behavior should be clear, concise and limited.
mischievous? Has he been calm and accepting of most things until now? And, most important, is my own body language causing this to occur? Once I was willing to spend more time with regard to balance on the lead rope exercises and proceeded to the round pen to learn to balance on the circle, I soon discovered that developing good balance and posture was critical to a mule’s training. The reason my mule was pulling on the lunge line so hard was because he just could not balance his own body on a circle. Once I reviewed the leading exercises with him—keeping balance, posture and coordination in mind—and then went to the round pen to learn to balance on the circle, I noticed there was a lot less resistance to everything he was doing. I introduced the lunge line in the round pen and taught him how to circle with slack in the line. After that, lunging in the open arena on the lunge line was much easier and he did maintain the slack in the line while circling me.
beginning to get your own body to assimilate correctness. In the beginning, a rider cannot “feel” the hind legs coming under his seat, so he needs to learn by watching the front legs moving forward along with his hands. With practice, the rider will develop the “feel” and will no longer need to watch the front legs moving forward. Remember, we all perceive things a little differently, and our perception depends on how we are introduced to something and on whether or not we can understand or perform a task.
Achieving balance and harmony with your mule requires more than just balancing and conditioning your mule’s body. As you begin to finish-train your mule, you should shift your awareness more toward your own body. Your mule should already be moving forward fairly steadily and in a longer frame, and basically be obedient to your aids. The objective of finish-training is to build the muscles in your own body, which will cause your aids to become more effective and clearly defined. This involves shedding old habits and building new ones, which takes a lot of time and should not be approached with any impatience. Remember: there are no shortcuts. In order to stabilize your hands and upper body, you need to establish a firm base in your seat and legs. Ideally, you should be able to drop a plumb line from your ear to your shoulder, down through your hips, through your heels and to the ground. To maintain this plumb line, work to make your joints and muscles in your body more supple and flexible by using them correctly. Always look where you are going to keep your head in line with the rest of your body.
upper body to the seat and legs, you can do a simple exercise: Put your mule on the rail at an active working walk. On the long side, drop your reins on his neck and feel your lower body connect with his body as you move along. You will need to tip your pelvis forward and stretch your abdominal muscles with each step in order to maintain your shoulder to hip plumb line. If your lower leg remains in the correct position, your thigh muscles will be stretched on the front of your leg from your hip to your knee. There is also a slight side-to-side motion as your mule moves forward that will cause your seat bones to move independently and alternately forward. There is no doubt that you can probably do this fairly easily right from the start, but to maintain this rhythm and body position without thinking about it takes time and repetition.
When you and your mule have become adept at the walk and the trot, add the canter. At the canter, however, keep your arms out to the side and rotate them in small backward circles in rhythm with the canter. Be sure to sit back and allow only your pelvis, your seat and your thighs to stretch forward with the canter stride. Keep your upper body erect and your lower leg stable from the knee down. Once your mule has learned to differentiate seat and leg aids in each gait and through the transitions on the large circle, you can begin to work on directional changes through the cones.