Winning Mule

Winning agility mule!

My attempts at human training are coming on well!  After reading all about what FH really thinks of me  (I knew she was soft on me really....) I decided that I should take our training to the next level and enter her for an agility competition.

Whilst the competition was called 'Horse Agility' I shall rename it 'Human Agility', FH has named it 'Mule Agility'.  Honestly I think she just tries to deflect pressure from herself on to me!

So the Dragon mobile arrived and I hopped on board without any problems..... I had plans for my day out....

Hello fans, nice to see you all.  There were lots of handsome short ears to chat with and show off in front of.  They had all brought a human with them too, some had even brought two (not sure I could cope with two humans, one to train is quite enough thank you!).  

So we had a little practice,   I got FH through the flappy curtain once she'd decided it wasn't a human eater....

Then over some poles, through and hoop and over a jump, backed over the poles, controlled FH's paces (impossible, she is too slow and prone to stopping for a little rest....

Then I loaded myself in the trailer while FH watched (lazy human), picked my way through the 'S' bend pretending there were snake infested waters on either side, stood on the podium with all four hoofellas off the ground

Then I had a little play on the tarpaulin...again FH stopped for a little chat... honestly humans talk too much... have you noticed me?!

Then my big mule moment came when I showed FH how to play see-saw, I was not at all bothered about tottering on the plank.... FH looked alarmed!  Sorry no pics of this one... blink and you'll miss it!

Then a stop for a lunch snack.... mule cannot function on an empty tummy so I opted for the 'all you can eat grass buffet'.  FH went and ate unhealthy human food, no wonder she was sluggish!

Then my big moment!  The competition!  Gotta show those short ears how to train humans..... I gotta prove that humans are not stubborn (not all the time at least) and if you negotiate with them you can get them to achieve quite a lot.

So around the obstacles I went with mulish charm and a swish of the tail here and there to keep the human listening to me.  FH did fairly well and managed to keep her feet up with mine most of the time, she did fail to get her feet in the right place in the S bend and dropped some points but I was perfect (not meaning to be big headed of course...)!  When we'd done we patiently watched everyone else who did great (whilst eating grass ;-) and then waited for the big results!

And the winner is...... ME!!! I managed to train my human so well that we got first prize!  How about that!  My first competition and a winner :-)  It's not the winning that was good though, it was the big grin on the human's face and the fun that we had.  Secretly I quite like this human training thing, I could get used to it..... now I have to train her to provide carrots on demand, scratch my itches, tidy my room, talk to me nicely..... hmmm actually I'm not doing too bad so far am I?  

Time for home and there was just one thing left for this superstar mule to do.  Have a nice little snooze in the afternoon sun.... it's hard work training humans!

Snoozy Mule!

Have a great week muleteers, whoever said that humans were stubborn?  They're actually quite a trainable species really but I doubt they have the intelligence of us mules... ah well at least they have us to look after them :-)

Many of the pictures  in this post are used with the kind permission of Martin Lovell Photography and remain copyrighted.