Catching Your Mule on Your Terms

Steve Edwards: Still nice and relaxed, look at the ears, nice and quiet.

Steve Edwards: Good. The tail’s a little switchy but not a big deal. This is where you need to spend time on the right hand side.

Sue: Okay.

Steve Edwards: Catching them on the right hand side. Once you catch them, it’s okay to put the lead rope around them. Go ahead and put the lead rope itself around the neck, now. Just the lead rope itself. Put it on the other side and pull her towards you a little bit. You don’t want to go in there and get yourself boxed in and maybe get hurt. Go ahead and pull her to you just a little bit nice and easy. Nice, very good. Keep on coming. Keep on coming. Bring it on out.

Sue: Oh, I don’t want to-

Steve Edwards: You bet. Now, come around to the other side. Now, you see you’re in a safe area. That was nice and quiet. Just touching them nice and quiet. The animal stayed quiet the whole time. Now, again the mule is already easy to catch. She’s gentle but we want to build her leadership that says you move your feet when I say move them, and you keep your feet quiet when I say quiet. It’s going to be a little tight, Sue.

Sue: I was going to say it’s very tight.

Steve Edwards: It’s going to be tight. That’s okay-

Sue: She’s not going to like that.

Steve Edwards: No, she’s not but she’ll get over it. Always remember they may like something, but that don’t mean nothing. They may be unhappy with it, that don’t mean nothing. Two fingers above the nostril’s good. They’ll get over it. It’s not a big problem. That’s okay. Keep on tying it the way you’re doing it. You’re doing fine. I’m going to show you a little bit more correct way. That’s very good. What we’re doing here, now, is we’re building her leadership. Animal’s already easy to catch, but he’s easy to catch on his rules not your rules. When we slap our leg, we make him uncomfortable. When we get quiet, we make them comfortable. They’re starting to say, “Oh.” Where’s this going to be handy?

You’re going to be out in the field someplace or someplace that’s hard to catch. They’re going to remember the lesson we just did. Now, we’re going to do this today into threes like we just did. The next time we’re going to do it, those three. Then we’re going to do three more. We’re going to six. Next time we’re going to do it, we’re going to do those six. We’re going to do three more. Make nine and build a foundation. Pretty soon the mule will just be just boom, boom, boom until you get to 12. Now, this is what happens, come on over here, Sue.