Riley has entered into more serious training. Jo, our daughter in law has agreed to take her and work with her for the rest of the summer. In exchange for Riley's training, Mark is giving her Sequoyah, the sweetest, cutest yearling on the face of the planet who recently skewered himself on a t-post, but is healing up fine. Thank God.
First day Johanna ponied Riley the 4 more miles to their place and Riley almost had her in tears and had Jo's mount Rosa (Formerly known as Hersha) upset as well. It is a good thing that Rosa is a shire/quarter horse cross as she needed all that bulk to tow the mule up the hill. At times Jo said Riley had her feet planted and her butt down. The thing is that Ms. Riley doesn't like Ms. Rosa. Strong personality conflict. I have always ponied Riley off of one of her buddies, in her mind she is just following friends so she goes happily along. Which is why she needs more training. She is a bit spoiled. Just a bit. Super sweet, super stubborn, but that goes with the territory when you are a winking mule!
I will keep you updated on her progress and hopefully the next photos will show her slimmer and under saddle with rider.
Me thinks it takes a special set of skills to train a mule versus training a horse -- but I could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteGood luck.
Dan
You are right Dan. When I trained our donkey to ride it took a lot more patience. I once sat on her back cueing her to go forward for over 15 minutes, I timed it. When she stepped forward I stopped cueing and when she stopped I started again. She eventually became quite pleasant to ride, but she did have a mind of her own. I have a book on training mules that I am going to loan Jo. It just might help.
ReplyDeleteLol, she is winking! My hat's off to Jo, cause mules are just different. They're smarter, imo. I never have been a "mule person" but I dang sure respect them!
ReplyDelete