Helping a friend train some mules

You can’t argue with succsess! It is a breath of fresh air to see them trained by someone other than a “Qualified” Horse Whisperer! Jack Stroud accomplished a lot and Malcom is still training in Spencer, TN (but not for the public).

It seems to me that this is a better safe than sorry method. The tractor boom prevents them from running away or baulking. In the video Malcolm Jessup drove the tractor slowly and Jack Strode drove the mules. I would say that this might be safer than trying to drive an ornery animal and having it get away from you and ruining it. A lot of retraining or not being able to retrain can be avoided with this method especially on rank mules that remember everything. I don’t think it is a bad experience just experience. I remember when Strode was alive the Lancaster paper would have ads for Strode broke mules at the big sales and they brought good money because they knew they were broke to work. It pays to have a bag of tricks when training animals because they don’t always need the same curriculum. If you train very many you will see quirks pop up now and then and if you have experience and a bag of tricks it is usually easy to work out the quirks. I have never used this method but if the need arose I wouldn’t be afraid to try it because cull horses are worthless right now. Sometimes a willful animal can be a great worker once you get them around to your way of thinking!

i worked with jack strode trading mules selling and breaking mules i raised a lot of mules and sold jack several mules i had made it to high school with my mule breaking jack carried me on to college he did whatever was needed to get the job done it was left up to the mule as to how harsh the method might be he did not wisper nor did he talk loud the video is just a very small part of his tricks and really only for people with not much experience handleing mules if he were still living he would get a big laugh out of some of the methods that are tried these days he would say that fellow going to get killed he took many spoiled mules and made them in to good work mules ronnie tucker tn logger

One of my best mentors once impressed upon me a very simple principle and that is, when training a horse (or a mule), set the horse up to do it the way you want them to, from the start, so they never learn to do something else accidentally (that you have to train them not to do).

So while there are a few things about this guys training that aren’t my personal style, the tractor certainly sets the mules up to do it right and that will certainly stay in my ‘bag of tricks’ going forward. As Dennis, rightly points out, every horse is different and you might need something alittle different than your normal approach for a difficult or challenging animal.

Personally, I enjoy seeing how others train, whether I’m learning a new trick or a technique I’d like to avoid…its all good.

Robert I believe that you are not completely understanding this process. The tractor acts as a safety net to keep them from getting away or learning that they can. Other than the use of the boom and tractor there really isn’t anything unusual about it except that it allows you to train two animals together in a team. Strodes mules were sought after by many folks over the years. Sometimes in the training stage you have to train the rankness out of them before you can make friends. No matter how you train animals you have to be the boss. Sometimes that involves making friends as the training progresses instead of ahead of time. Training is definately a case by case ordeal. I can see the merit in this method although I may never use it but the possibility exists that I may need it someday so I keep my options open. There is no reason to believe that these mules won’t be willing and calm workers or even their owners best friends and work partners. I wish you success in training in the future but my advise to you is not to close your mind to any methods that aren’t severe or cruel. You may run into a situation and know what to do someday if you remain open minded. Gather your bag of tricks and even if you have a few that you never use at least they are there just in case.

I don’t think that an animal “has to be my buddy” to learn anything… or to be trustworthy; however, just as with humans, I trust those that are my friends more than I do those that aren’t. Can others than those that are my friends be trustworthy? Yes, of course. But the trust I share with friends is deeper, more bonding than others. I just don’t see this method as being conducive to developing that type of relationship. I see a difference in the animals that have been submission trained (fear is but only one {extreme}type of submission training) and an animal that has actually been allowed to make the choice… of course, the tricky part is to give them motivation to choose my way. If the only way to successfully train or teach an individual animal happens to be this method, then I know that that animal & I will never “fit”… and so I wouldn’t buy it – or if I have, then I’d sell it. And yes, I did learn from this… I learned that I wouldn’t have a use for it; but it was enlightening, in that regard. As for the Jack Strode mules being desired = those 20 mules I posted about being for sale a while ago? Most were originally bought at the big auction in Tennessee, with a focus on buying Jack Strode-trained ones. I can’t say how any others are – or even if these are really trained by him, but I CAN say that Clarence’s biggest Belgian mule is at least 300# bigger than Ellie… who will outpull him any day of the week; because 1) she just likes to pull 2) she really likes Bonner – and will do ANYthing for him. Nothing wrong with these mules at all – but I see the difference, and desire it. This method most definitely seems an effective way to take a raw, even rank, animal and get it to working in a very short time. But I wonder… is there any other, equally effective method that’ll do the same results in the same time frame? I don’t know ‘horse whispering’ from horsesh**, so I ask those of you who might know. I’m not trying to argue, here… I’m trying to learn. I do thank you for sharing your words & views… whether or not I agree with them.