It's All Trew: It was burdensome training the beasts

Here is an interesting thought. For every mule, horse, oxen, steer or jackass used as a work animal down through history - and there were probably millions - someone had to train or break the animal to work. Those animals raised on a farmstead were somewhat gentle, but those raised on the range or captured from the wild were more like wild animals. Few journals or historical interviews record this particular phase of the Old West. Here and there, tidbits explain how the beasts of burden were trained. The early Spanish trained rookie jackasses and mules by catching and installing heavy halters and lead ropes, then tying them to big logs. They could drag the logs, but not far. They quickly became used to being tied, and to humans bringing them hay, grain and water. A second process saw a personal rawhide pack saddle called an aparejo soaked, cut and fitted to the mule's size and back contours, then stuffed between the layers of leather with prairie grasses for padding. The mule wore the wet pack saddle until it dried, then he was loaded, placed between two mule veterans, his lead rope tied to the mule's tail in front with the following mule's lead rope tied to his tail...read more