Welcome to the Lucky 6

As a trainer myself, I love to read articles about mule/horse training. Often, in the same magazine even, I will read conflicting information from different trainers' articles. One may say "never grain your mule" while another says "give your mule a little grain or treat". Or the old shoeing/barefoot debate. Some trainers insist on britchen, some suggest cruppers. There are at least a hundred ways, it seems, to get your critter to stand for mounting, or to turn on the haunches, or even to stop w… Continue

'Twas October 18, 2009. It's never a good thing to find a blood trail when going out to pet the mules. It's worse when you see the 1-2 foot stream of blood shooting from the pastern. I took Monty into the barn for a pressure wrap & some time indoors to make sure it worked. Thank God, it did. Later that night I changed him to a standing bandage without the pressure. I used only homemade saline to clean the wound. A very deep cut from barbwire, deep.

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If I recall correctly, this happened back in late September. (Read: sometime after late July, before October. ;)
The critters had been on walkabout for a few days when D. Weed determined that thay needed to come on home. You see, he had a meeting with Mr. Porcupine the night before. He knew he needed me to help pull the quills out. It actually took Chuck & I & a few well placed ropes & hobbles & a feed bucket secured to his face, but we got the job done.
I had already pulled out… Continue

Mom loaded me into the trailer at 2:30 on Friday afternoon for the 4 1/2 hour trip to the Big Horn ridecamp. At 11:30 we rolled into camp & I finally got to get out of the trailer. You see, I had a trailer endurance ride before the actual endurance ride. About 6 miles out of Buffalo the oil pump went out on the truck. At least it wasn't a super hot day.

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Fast forward to the end of May. I'm back to work, finally. Yea! One horse for a spring tune up & two mules needing some work. As for my own, Denny is all healed up & sound again (thanks to the little 'healer' Reno for keeping his wound clean). Monty has been sound, poked a hole in his forearm of the same leg then lame again, healed up & got sound then did something to be REALLY off on his left hind but that seems to be better now. He's back to running with the herd & looking soun… Continue