Paul will teach you about mules

“The personality of the mule is more like the personality of a dog,” says Paul Garrison of Medina. “The only difference is you can’t have that mule lay in your lap.”

Paul trains mules to ride or pull at his place in Medina. He’ll also come to your place to teach you about mules.

“The mules are easy to train and get going, but it’s the people that need the training about how they need to properly communicate with that mule.”

Six generations of his family have lived on the property.

“People come here to my place. Most of them stay three days; some will stay a week.  We teach them the basics of how to properly and effectively communicate with their animals. There’s not but about six or eight people in the United States that do this.”

He’s been training mules twenty years, more for riding than pulling.

“Once I got started with them it became pretty obvious that I could get along well with them. I could do things that other folk, more often than not, had issues with.”

He says the further west you go the more interest you find in mules.

“The maintenance is much less than a horse. They don’t require much vet care. Mules, under most conditions, don’t need to be shod.”

Some mules have a substantial price tag.

“They are getting more and more popular. A good solid mule will start somewhere around six thousand dollars and may go up to sixty thousand.”

Paul defines some mule terminology:

“A donkey is a working animal that originated from a wild species in Africa. Now domesticated, they, along with mules, helped build highways, railroads, and other things when our country was developing. A donkey has longer ears than a mule and is generally shorter than a mule.

“A mule is a hybrid cross between a male donkey and a female horse. The question now is what if you cross a male horse to a female donkey. That cross is called a hinnie.  There is very little difference between a hinnie and a mule. There just aren’t as many hinnies as there are mules.

“A jack is a male donkey, also known as a jackass. A jenny is a female donkey. A burro is a small donkey. A male mule is a horse mule. A female mule is a molly mule.

“The mule, having fifty percent donkey and fifty percent horse, gets its athletic ability, speed, and ease of movement, from the horse.”