GARTH JENSON | HUNT ADVISOR
Let me start off by saying that I am not what I would consider to be an expert in packing or training mules and horses, but I have learned from a fair number of individuals that I do consider to be experts in these fields. I have taken those lessons to heart and tried my best to implement them along the way. Mules have been my passion for a good number of years now, and I have made my share of mistakes and seen a fair number of wrecks, most of which I believe could’ve been prevented with the right amount of preparation prior to heading into the hills on a pack trip.
I grew up around horses, most of which were old sheep herding ponies—although I did convert one to a heel horse for high school rodeo during my freshman and sophomore years. Once I got out of high school and hit my twenties and thirties, I did most of my hunting off my back. I viewed loading the stock up, being tied to a suitable water source, and figuring out the feed situation for the duration of the hunt as inconveniences instead of assets. In those days, I could load up my pack with fifty-plus pounds and head to the top of the mountain without giving it another thought. I got used to that type of hunting—not seeing vehicles or feeling the limits of hunting pressure. But when more and more hunters started hunting the same way, I had to figure out how to get just a little farther, and that led me back to my four-legged friends.
I first got into mules around twelve or so years ago. I started out with a couple of mules and have gradually built my string up to over fifteen mules and horses, most of which pull double duty between riding and packing. I have picked up most of these mules from various owners and states across the Midwest, as these states often have more mules—and more reasonable pricing if you are in the market for more than one or two.
Now to be fair, I have sifted through a few clunkers on my, mostly due to the fact I didn’t have the time to give them what they needed. Those experiences led me to fine-tune my selection process. It became important to me to try and secure mules that were far enough along that I didn’t have to teach them the basics and instead just needed some exposure to new elements and new surroundings.
Most of the mules I’ve picked up have never been around hunting or blood of any kind, and the ones that have have only been exposed to hog and squirrel hunting. But most of the trouble usually comes from small things—things you would never even think of, like sheep, cows, sprinklers, large colored rocks, and tree stumps. These types of interactions are common when you get into the field, and the proper exposure ahead of time can mitigate the amount of fallout if your mules are scared to death of a mother cow and her calf walking towards you on the trail.
The first measure I like to take is what I call “passive encounters.” This involves nothing more than creating a controlled situation where they can be exposed to different things without being overwhelmed. You can use simple little tricks, like draping a manti tarp over the fence you walk by every time you lead your equine from the corral to where you saddle them. They will most likely side-eye it and move around it, but they will slowly get accustomed to seeing it and walking by it until it isn’t that big of a deal at all. Same thing works with pack boxes, elk heads, sleeping bags, and so on. The more you can present these to the animal in a low-stress environment before they are strapped to the mules’ backs, the faster they will get over their phobia and accept whatever it is they were initially worried about. Most of this nervousness comes down to nothing more than the fact that the mule has never seen or smelled these things before. Prey animals, especially mules, are always going to be leery about something they can’t immediately mark as safe.
Once I’ve at least figured out how sensitive the animal is to certain things, I get a feel for how fast I can progress the exposure to different items. I use all the tools, including flogging and tarps, to progress the desensitizing process, but each animal will have its own pace. Some will take to it right away; after moving the flagging around them a few times, they will allow you to rub them all over with it. Once that animal has figured out that whatever it is isn’t a danger, they typically come around quickly. That said, I have found that the slower you introduce things, the better. If you go through this phase too quickly and force them into a situation they mentally can’t handle, you could set them back and cause them to be even more afraid of things than they were originally.
It’s important to remember as you’re advancing their training that your equine partner is also getting used to you at the same time. This animal just got uprooted from what they knew, moved across the country, and doesn’t know you from Adam. Typically, you also don’t know the entirety of an animal’s backstory and have no idea what experiences they’ve had, so it is better to never assume it’s fine and always make sure it’s fine. A lot of the anxiety problems equines have with objects and situations really stem from them not being one hundred percent comfortable with you, especially when it comes to mules. Mules take longer to come around and fully trust new people, and they can often seem very difficult to teach. I have found that if you can establish trust with them before you progress to desensitizing training, they will progress a lot faster.
As a next step in passive encounters, I like to find out if the animal has any phobias regarding livestock. I am lucky enough to have a farm where I can lead them past all kinds of livestock you might come across on the trail, including sheep, goats, and cows. If you don’t have this, find a pasture next to a road that has livestock in it and lead you mules along the fence. Once again, you don’t want to overexpose them until they are ready for it. How close you get to the fence will be determined initially by how they react to the animals on the other side. I have seen gentle, ridable mules that have blown, snorted, wheeled, and headed for the hills over a single calf walking towards them from 150 yards away on the other side of a fence. Walk the mule toward the animal until they let you know they’re worried, then back off a bit. Continue to expose them in this way until they start to feel like this is just another day and there’s nothing to worry about.
The natural progression following passive encounters is direct encounters. This is where you expose your mules in close quarters to the objects or situations that have made them nervous. I am not a fan of ratcheting up the pressure to this stage until the animal is very comfortable being in the proximity of the objects or situations you are about to flood them with. When they are ready for this flooding stage, it’s important to get them close to the source of potential anxiety, even to the point of touching, and wait for them to show some sign of relaxing before taking the object or animal out of the situation. This teaches them that everything will be fine if they relax.
Eventually, you’ll want to progress the amount of exposure until they give no signs of being bothered from start to finish. This step takes a little more feel and timing than passive encounters to get the animal through it, but if you did a good job in passive encounters, this direct pressure phase should progress much faster.
One lesson others tried to teach me (but that I’ve in part learned the hard way through some wrecks that were most likely my fault) is to never just pluck a mule from unknown circumstances and take them into unfamiliar country for your first ride. Or even the second, third, or fourth ride for that matter. Taking them out on trails is important for getting them used to most of the things that they might encounter on a hunting trip, but it takes time to establish how spookable an animal is, so I always try to pack new mules and horses the first few times out on the trails as a safety precaution. If they are going to have a freak out on the trail, I would rather have them do it with hay cubes or sleeping bags on their back than with me on their back. I have seen way too many “bombproof” mules and horses flop over backwards, tear off down the trail, or plunge into the timber to risk my health on the first few trips.
Those are all things I like to get taken care of prior to the first trip where I’ll really need them. The worst way to start out a hunting trip is to throw some foreign mules and horses together that haven’t been exposed to any of the environmental conditions you are about to lead them into. You’ll most likely see the wheels come off the bus at the trailhead, but it might happen a mile or two in instead. Either scenario is less than ideal. Even if you go through all of these “safety precautions,” things still happen, and you can’t prepare for everything. That said, following these steps can definitely mitigate some, if not most, of the wrecks that come of the “too much too soon” scenarios that I have watched play out countless times.
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