By LISA HLAVINKA
Staff Writer

MONTVILLE TWP. — A man in fringed leather chaps and a cowboy hat swings around his rope, kicking up dust in the horse arena as he reigns in his mule.

His assistant wears fringed chinks and a bandanna around her neck. Her pigtailed hair is under a cowboy hat.

The pair is not Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley, and the arena is not in an old Western movie.

They are Brad Cameron of Montana and Karen Anderson of Alberta, Canada, and they’re conducting “mule school” in Medina County.

Mule expert Karen Anderson, of Alberta, Canada, works with a young mule as the animal’s owner, Tim Godard, watches her technique Friday at the beginning of “mule school” at Godard’s farm in Montville Township. (Shirley Ware | Photo Editor)

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For the second year in a row, Cameron has made it to Tim Godard’s farm on River Styx Road to teach mule owners how to handle their pets.

Some of the mules come in “green” and need to be broken in. Others are brought in somewhat trained but need their skills honed.

“Mule school” is held over three days. On Friday, the colts were broken in. Later they will be taught to be saddled and ridden, sometimes for the first time.

The name “mule school” could be misleading, however, since much of the clinic is about training the owners.

“I’m not really training the mules that much,” Cameron joked. “But if we called it ‘people training,’ no one would come.”

Roger Lytle, of Perrysville, Ohio, who came to the clinic as a spectator, said the same thing about training his three mules.

“They’re so difficult to train because you have to train yourself as much as the mule.”

The training techniques are firm and precise, but never violent. Godard said he likes Cameron’s techniques because he uses rewards instead of punishment.

“I’ve seen guys beat mules with two-by-fours,” Godard said. “That’s not the way to do it.”

Cameron said violence doesn’t work on mules for “the same reason it doesn’t work on people.”

A lot of mule training is about eliminating the mules’ fears, so treating the mule harshly is counterproductive, Cameron said.

“A lot of forcing things on them confirms their suspicions in the first place,” he said.

Mules aren’t as trusting as horses, which partly accounts for the phrase “stubborn as a mule.”

“A lot of people perceive them as stubborn, but they want to test the waters before they go,” Sandy Thomas said. She has two young mules, ages 6 and 11 months, at her farm in Wellington.

To get the mules ready for saddling, Cameron had the owners place burlap sacks on the mules’ backs “to get them used to a foreign object on their back and around their head,” Lytle, said.

“What they’re doing is desensitizing them so when they get a saddle, they’re not so spooked or scared,” he said.

At 9 a.m., the anxious colts were brought into the arena, scraping their hooves on the dirt and whinnying.

By 11:30 a.m., a few of the mules were ready to be saddled. The owners led them into a pen and tried at first to put a saddle blanket on their backs, and then the saddle.

Most mules were able to handle the saddle, even if the mule bucked and tried to evade its owner at first.

“With a mule, you have to present a good reason for him to do it,” Cameron explained.

In fact, many of the owners said a mule’s trepidation boils down to great intelligence.

Training mules can be more difficult than training a horse. Horses will learn through repetition or a swat on the nose, but the same is not true for mules.

“A mule will find a new way to do something bad,” Lytle said. “You have to be thinking as much as the mule is thinking.”

Once trained, however, an intelligent mule may be better to have in a sticky situation than a horse.

“Mules are pretty smart; they won’t get you in trouble,” Godard said.

Godard learned that from experience.

Last spring he tried to take his 5-year-old mule, Sammy, up a muddy ravine on his River Styx property. At the bottom of the ravine, Sammy stood still, not wanting to go any farther.

“Sammy, he knew it was too slippery,” Godard said. “But I kept saying, ‘C’mon, C’mon.’ ”

Goddard rode Sammy about three-quarters of the way up the ravine when Sammy’s foot slipped, sending Godard toppling off the mule.

Sammy managed to jump over Godard, avoiding injury to him, and headed toward the bottom of the ravine.

A short time later, Godard made it down and found Sammy calmly eating grass in a pasture.

“He looked at me like, ‘Where have you been? I told you not to go up there.’ ”

Godard became interested in mules about six years ago at a mule and donkey show. He and his son, Mike, were chatting with a few mule trainers when they gave him a “word of caution.”

“They said, ‘If you ride a mule, buy a mule, you’ll never ride your quarter horse again,’ ” Godard said.

He hasn’t ridden his quarter horse, Clueless, since. Godard now owns five mules and would like to sell Clueless.

“I really like my quarter horse, old Clue, but I love my mules,” he said.

He said mules “get into your head,” meaning he has formed quite an affection for his.

“You can look into a mule’s eyes and almost tell what they are thinking,” he said. “You can’t do that with a horse.”

Lytle said mules can live for more than 30 years, making them more of a family member than a pet.

He connected to mules after spending six years in the military and finding the transition back to civilian life difficult, he said.

“I like the challenge,” he said. “It was more of a mental challenge learning something new.”

Lytle and Godard said they like mules better because they are more sure-footed than horses.

Mules are bred by crossing a male donkey with a female horse, giving them the smaller feet and wide-set eyes of a donkey. Smaller feet allow for more precision while riding on narrow or treacherous trails, Godard said. The wide-set eyes allow the mules to have a wider range of vision than horses, he said.

When riding off trail, a mule will take the widest path it can see through the woods, Godard said. A horse’s close eyes will not be able to see how wide a path is and scrape the rider’s legs against tree trunks, he said.

Lytle’s sister-in-law, Jill Lytle, also prefers mules because they are never inbred the way horses can be. Because mules are hybrid, they cannot breed.

“They can’t be inbred to the point of flaws,” she said.

Historically, Godard said mules may have a reputation for stubbornness because of the way they were bred a hundred or so years ago.

Good horses were used for riding in those days, and mules for work. Horses that were “bad” or difficult to control were left in stalls, used only to breed work mules.

“Consequently, they got stubborn mules,” he said.

Today, mules are bucking that reputation because people specifically breed good horses with donkeys, Godard said.

Seven people attended the colt clinic on Friday; about 13 more will join the class throughout the weekend, Godard said. Their mules will be trained just in time for Mule Appreciation Day, Oct. 26.

During lunch, Godard asked Anderson exactly which day was Mule Appreciation Day.

“Isn’t every day mule appreciation day?” she responded.

Godard turned back to his lunch, smiling.

“People kid me and say, ‘Have you hugged your horse today?’ I said, ‘Every morning.’ ”

Hlavinka may be reached at 330-721-4048 or lhlavinka@ohio.net.

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