BearHawk 357":26h1w88l said:
AzRebel,
Wow, that was an awesome post, buddy. Lots of good useful information in there. Thanks a lot for the great training approach ideas.
Oh, and the visual image of wandering around the pasture, firing blanks up in the air, to get your lost horse back is priceless. This reminds me of a couple times when my rabbit beagles took off, paying no mind to my commands.....some of us have been there. It's kind of hard to forget some of these moments in life (not that I want to forget them).
Sarcasm is hard to read in some posts, and I'm not exactly sure how to take your post. So, I'll simply respond with a fond memory of my own. it's particularly fond for me now, because my dad passed almost three years ago, and Gus was sold to a gal in Phoenix for fear he'd kill dad's miniature wiener dog "Abby". As a matter of fact, Abby was even recently put down, since she was full of cancer.
Anyway, dad had an ornery cuss of a mule named "Gus". Now ol' Gus was just a smallish, ordinary looking mule, but he was anything but ordinary. He seemed to have a bit of magician in him, and a mighty wide streak of orneriness.
I remember once being up near Big Lake on road 409 when a rancher pulled up and started gathering cattle. Gus watched as the old fellar pushed cattle out of the pines and into the meadow. After an hour or so of that, Gus took to 'em like a well trained cutting horse; 'cept ol' Gus was cuttin' and scatterin', rather than gatherin'. Sure ticked off that rancher, 'specially when Gus took to his dog, ran it under rthe truck, and wouldn't let it out to help gather the cattle back up.
On another elk hunt, he managed to untie himself (He loved to untie knots in ropes). Not only did he untie his own tie-rope, but he went around and turned all the other horses and mules loose, too. Now, they were loose in national forest, and could go just about as far as they wanted in any direction. That was a problem, since they could travel cross-country faster than we could. To be honest, I'm not sure if it was the shot or the sound of the grain can, but ol' Gus really had a weak spot for his grain. He came a floggin' it back to the trailer, leading the pack of other critters right back where they belonged.
Another time we were up on Rattlesnake Ranch, just south of Blue Vista, and Gus managed to jimmy the gate to let most of the other critters out with him. By the time we noticed them missing, they were gone. Now, Rattlesnake Ranch takes up some of the more rugged country Arizona has to offer. Most of it stands on end, and it takes up about 43 square miles on a map. Laid out flat, it'd take up at least 3 times that much. It's mighty pretty country, but no place to walk around in looking for a crazy mule. We were there to gather cattle with Troy, and he was fit to be tied 'cause it wasn't going to happen without those animals. So, once again Gus' fondness for barley brought him back, again leading the pack.
While it may seem laughable, and even a bit crazy in a strange sorta way, there's a few tricks to training critters. If a fella's going to keep equine critters, he'd be well advised to learn some of 'em.
A little know-how helps, too. There was a gal up the road at the feed store not long ago who was having a bit of trouble loading a horse she'd just aquired. There was maybe seven of them trying to load that critter, and they'd been there for something like six hours. It broke one of my ropes (stinkin' plastic junk they make these days), so I got another, older and better one out. I only stand about 5'7", and weigh around 140 lbs, and they didn't think I could do it, but I had that horse in the trailer in under a minute on the next try. My granddad taught me about horses, and my dad taught me about mules. I hope I was a good student, 'cause neither of them is here to teach me such things any more.
And I miss 'em both a lot.
Daryl