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  Discussion on Mule attacks spotted horses
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Member:
Heidim

Posted on Monday, Jun 26, 2006 - 4:48 pm:

On Saturday, my daughter and I went trail riding. We met three other riders on the trail, the last astride a beautiful white Appaloosa with a loud blanket. My daughter turned her old mule past this horse just fine, but when I rode by on my five-year-old mule, the mule lashed out with a kick at the App and charged ahead 50 feet. Fortunately, my daughter's mule scooted ahead just enough to avoid getting plowed into and then stopped. This happened once when the mule was almost three years old. She just had 30 days on her, and the trainer was taking us out to show how she rode. I was on a leopard App at the time, and the mule took a kick at her, too. In neither case, did the mule actually make contact with the horse. I have every reason to believe she has issues with this coloring. We're considering painting a white plastic 55 gallon drum with spots and placing it in the pasture. Before we do this, I thought I'd run it by the HA members. Any thoughts or better ideas?
Member:
Leilani

Posted on Monday, Jun 26, 2006 - 5:20 pm:

Heidi,

A few years ago a spotted mule arrived at the ranch I was at. You would have thought that a pride of lions arrived. The horses stayed as far away as possible for about 4 days. It was truly funny to watch. Rainbow is now part of the herd. Maybe it was the spots. Leilani
Member:
Warwick

Posted on Monday, Jun 26, 2006 - 8:27 pm:

Heidi, I have absolutely no idea what horses think of color but I'll relate two episodes that happened to me.

First time was I owned an Anglo-Arab gelding who was a doormat with other horses unless they were grey. I should add that during the time I owned him (4 years) he never saw appaloosas or paints. Anyway, he absolutely HATED grey horses! At shows I could not school him near greys. This was a horse that was an advanced level dressage horse but he'd lose his mind when he saw a grey horse. Would try to kick or bite or just attack on sight. It was positively unreal.

When I bought a young grey Hanoverian filly, he proceeded to almost tear down a 4-bar wooden fence to get at her and it was very obvious that if he'd gotten through the fence, he would have killed her. He never grew out of this that I know of.

Someone told me once that grey or horses with a lot of white on them project an "inferiority" complex to some horses but I have absolutely no science to back this up. Dr O?
Member:
Vickiann

Posted on Monday, Jun 26, 2006 - 9:04 pm:

I have read that mares have a dislike for gray horses, and in my experience it is true. If there are horses around with other colors the mares will attack the grays, preferring other colors including my paint of palomino and white (I have a stocky gelding with these colors and the mares love him -- when he was quarantined for a few months we had a mare who liked my gray gelding until this horse was released from quarantine, and then she tried to kill, and severely injured my gray)) If only grays are around, the mares accept the grays. I've ridden with spotted saddle horses on rides where everyone disliked that color pattern. It even seems to me like horses of a particular breed have a preference for their own breed. Also, the horses seem to judge others on the basis of whether they would be a formidable opponent in a fight.
Member:
Heidim

Posted on Tuesday, Jun 27, 2006 - 8:35 am:

Interesting stories. Sounds like my mule is not alone in her issue. Anyone got ideas for how to deal with such a problem?
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, Jun 27, 2006 - 9:21 am:

Sensitivity training? Really such events are so unpredictable that the best thing you can do is to put a red ribbon in your mules tail to warn /remind other riders and of course be aware of your mules penchant for aiming at color and avoiding the situation.
DrO
Member:
Heidim

Posted on Tuesday, Jun 27, 2006 - 9:40 am:

I was afraid you were going to write that. I guess I'll just see how the spotted barrel idea goes and go from there. A mule friend thought she may have been chased by a Holstein or something similar in her younger years, and feels threatened by the coloring. She's so good about everything else that maybe it is something in her history. Either way, I need to do something. It's pretty hard to trail ride with my kids on such an animal.
Member:
Hwood

Posted on Tuesday, Jun 27, 2006 - 10:00 am:

Maybe you could buy a Holstein . . . or board an Appy or a pinto at your house for awhile . . . keep it in an adjoining pasture.
Since the mule is your mount, as long as you are focused on your own mount, you can keep her out of trouble . . . Just be aware of your surroundings and keep her focused on you, and give her something very specific to do when spotted animals are in the vicinity. That will be a great lesson for your young riding companions, too, and will teach them how to deal with similar incidents with their own mounts.
Member:
Mrose

Posted on Tuesday, Jun 27, 2006 - 12:13 pm:

Our gray stallion never heard of an inferiority complex!! And, he loves ALL other gray horses. Our black stallion loves one of our gray mares, but not the others (tho' he has no problem breeding them.) A friend of mine has a gray stallion that won't willingly breed bays.

Horses aren't the only ones with preferences, we had a black dog who got along with every dog he met...except black dogs. He hated all black dogs. I have no idea why.
Member:
Christel

Posted on Tuesday, Jun 27, 2006 - 12:26 pm:

Neat topic.
Maybe its the spots? When my black qh mare had her first paint foal, she would hardly come out of her leanto to show him off, not like her at all, after two weeks and many people ohhhing and ahhing over the foal she finally let the world see it. I felt like at the time she was ashamed of him- he had lots of white.
I guess prejudice exists even in the animal world.
Chris
Member:
Canter

Posted on Tuesday, Jun 27, 2006 - 8:19 pm:

This is a very timely discussion for me as I had a puzzling experience last Friday night at the barn. The barn owners have 4 dogs: 2 Bernese Mountain dogs and 2 Corgis. The neighbors have a lab, an Australian shepard and a mutt - all dogs run back & forth between the properties & are a mixture of brown and/ or black with a bit of white (except for the lab, solid black and the Aussie has the most white). And, being out in the country, it isn't unusual to find a stray wandering around. So, needless to say, the horses at the barn are very used to different dogs wandering around & playing. On Friday night, my Mom stopped out to the barn as I was finishing up. She asked permission to let her dog, an almost solid white English Setter, out of the car. I told her it was fine, just keep the Setter on a leash as she'd never seen horses before. Well, as she walked by one pasture, two of the horses went nuts. They became very agitated at the sight of my Mom's dog (who wasn't barking or reacting at all to the horses). I thought they'd hurt themselves so I asked my Mom to take her dog out of sight. I thought it strange and was truly concerned for those 2 horses. Can't imagine what was going through their heads.
Member:
Annes

Posted on Wednesday, Jun 28, 2006 - 11:04 am:

One very cold day I decided to put a green and white dog sweater on my irish setter. As soon as my 4 horses saw her in the sweater, they all aggressively ran toward her and kept circling until I rescued her. The poor dog had fell to the ground in fear and I had to jerk the sweater off her and hide it under my coat before the horses calmed down. I have never put another dog sweater on any of my dogs and I believe horses can tell colors or patterns.
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