Mule Trainer Paul Smith

Joe follows Paul Smith of Crossville, Tennessee as he talks about his life, philosophy and techniques for training draft mules to drive. He has done this "all my life" and you can sure tell he knows what he is doing.

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Joe starts by riding along in the wagon with Paul as he is training a 15 month old mule using his 11 year old training mule as a partner.
He is full of facts and great tips:

Mules can pull 3X their body weight but need to be in shape to do so which includes field work.
For training mules for people who will only use them on roads he spends a lot of time training them on roads with traffic.
Usually starts training to drove at 2 years old but can handle them at 2-3 months.
Training a mule older than 3 can be very difficult.
Well trained, conditioned, fed and watered mules WANT to work. They respond to the discipline of the training.
There are 4 kinds of mules. You need to know which kind you have so you can train accordingly:
Smart
Dumb
Scared
Mean

You can train a dumb mule, it just takes longer. Like people, we all learn at different rates.
DO NOT put a mule in a situation for which he is not ready or cannot handle.
DO NOT underfeed a mule in order to break.
First two things to teach a mule: His name and what WHOA means.

Paul trains his mules to pull wagons with tires, figure eights and then hooks them to weighted tires to get them stronger. Teaching start, stop, left and right.
Harness HAS TO FIT right. If it does not, the mule will not want to work, like wearing a too tight pair of shoes.

Paul says it is harder training the people than the mules!

GROUND TRAINING
We move to the ground and Paul shows how to hook up 6-8 mules to lead them out to the field.

He then hooks 2 mules to his forecart and starts working ion side-stepping. He uses soft voice commands and the lines to lead.

Lastly we see Paul let one of his mules enter the barn, at which time he heads straight to the hay to "waller" in it. The mule drops down and rolls around in the fresh hay. Paul says she is "freshening up" - which is a great sign!

Видео Mule Trainer Paul Smith канала Rural Heritage