Halter Training a Mule – Moving the Feet

Steve Edwards: We’ll go back. I’ll ask. What I’m doing is I’m halter training. This is all halter training. I’m just kind of bumping. It’s a little too low now, so I’ll raise it up. I’m just kind of bumping. Now I’ll come up and I’ll just kind of ask like this. Good. Good. Good. Good. Let’s back that foot up. Now the right rear foot. Nope. Now the right rear foot. Nope. Now the right rear foot. Nope.

What I’m doing is I’m rolling my wrist and I’m pointing down toward that foot. If I wanted this foot up I would raise up my hand and move that foot. Now I’m pointing toward the back foot. What I’m doing here is I’m pointing toward, let me get her balanced here. There. I’m pointing toward the foot. Let’s move that foot. Good.

Now let’s right rear foot. Left one went pretty easy. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Put it back. Don’t lean against me. Nope. Put it back. Nope. Okay. Now move it back. That a girl. There. She just kept thinking “Wait a minute. What foot am I supposed to move?” She starting figuring out it was the foot. Then finally I was able to get her to keep this one in place while I was doing the other one. Now, I want to move the left front foot, so I’m going to do this.

This is all part of halter training. You see this as halter classes. She wasn’t bracing so much she’d be a lot easier. What this is actually doing is getting her to back off of the bracing and listen to moving the feet. It’s taking quite a bit of work on my half to get her to loosen up those neck muscles. Now let’s go back. There we go. Good for you. Now bring it back. Bring it back again. Nope nope nope. Come on. Nope. You had it. Let’s put that one down. Okay good. Okay. Nope. Nope. Boy, she’s just really bracing against me. There. Okay, now I’ll leave her alone for a little bit.