Human has a bad leg..
Inara’s human here - I currently have an injured ankle/foot and I’ve been instructed to rest.. (haha with equines?!). Inara has been wanting to do things though and I’ve been unable to anything for weeks. So this week we had a play with what she can do while I sit and rest! She’s offered me so much this week it’s been fantastic, there are lots of things I wasn’t expecting (the football task on this video being one of those) but she’s been brilliant. She wanted to do more tonight and kept coming to find me after I’d fed everyone, but I really did need to properly rest after running an agility day today. 🙈
Enjoy.
#inarathemule #horseagility #injuredhuman #lazy #positivereinforcement #horses #mules #equine #equestrian #libertyhorse
Welcome home!
Human is home!! She’s been away for a week seeing mules in Morocco. She spent time at the wonderful Jarjeer Mule and Donkey Refuge meeting friends old and new, and also spent time working alongside muleteers in the mountains helping them to use bitless equipment.
It’s good to have her home though and the ground is finally drying out after the wettest winter ever, so soon be time for play time again! 😁
#inarathemule #mules #welcomehome
Clickity-Clack, Who’s Got My Snack?
Clickity-Clack, Who’s Got My Snack?
Hi friends! Did you know I’m trained with food rewards?
That’s right! I’m trained with positive reinforcement. There seems to be a lot of misinformation about food rewards floating about. Some saying it creates dangerous horses and even that it inhibits learning 🤯
So here’s a video of myself doing some pretty complex things that I’ve learnt 🤓 I love my learning and always come over when the human starts putting things out for me to play with, or when she tells me we’re going to do some training. I’m always engaged in learning and even gently throw in my own ideas (that backing around the human? I own that task - that was my idea). Now, I know I may be smarter than the average horse (mule ego, sorry.. 😆), but horses can also learn incredible things with this training!
Positive reinforcement training has not made me dangerous either - in fact, it’s taken me from scared and untouchable to Horse Agility World Champion 😎 it’s not made my 7 horse friends dangerous either, or many many others trained this way.
However, there is technique and things to learn when using this kind of training (as there is with any training!). So my mule top tip would be if you’re starting out with positive reinforcement training, get some help from a trainer to get yourself started.
For my fans, here’s just some old clips. We had yet more rain today (never ending!) but we will get some new footage as soon as the ground improves.
#inarathemule #positivereinforcement #snacks #horseagility #football #hoop #horsejumping #jumpingthroughhoops
Ooh a video popped up from two years ago today!
El (the human) was busy doing jobs around the field (aka being boring). So I had to practice my footy skills on my own… I tried to pass to Penny pony but she ignored me 🙄
Freaking nailed the ball skills though 😎
#inarathemule #mules #football #footballer #horses #equestrian #horseagility #equine #positivereinforcement #libertyhorse #horsemanship
Hello friends.
Inara here, the nights are slowly starting to draw out here in the UK. Some dancing this evening with awful video quality and a human that nearly goes out of shot 😅 a variation on a little thing we’ve played with before.
Someone once implied that we couldn’t do liberty without the obstacles. Which is of course nonsense, we do pretty much everything at liberty, I even have my feet trimmed at liberty! We do a lot with obstacles because of our Horse Agility, and they add super fun to our training - but we do fun stuff without them too. We also work without whips which have never been a part of our training, I struggle to hold one in my mouth and direct the human 🙃😆 the human doesn’t want to hold one either.
#inarathemule #mules #equine #libertyhorse #dancewithme #horses #horsemanship #positivereinforcement
Whistle call as the sun goes down.
😊
🎶 Those kicks were fast as lightening 🎶
“Fresh” paddock day.
#mule #inarathemule #equine #equestrian #horses
Hi folks. Inara’s human writing this one.
We do the “boring” stuff too.
Needle training this evening. She is incredibly sensitive and unfortunately struggles with needles, so we do a lot of work on it. Obviously though, I’m using a cocktail stick and a syringe not a needle that pierces the skin… and I’m her care giver and trainer, not a vet. So the practice is not the same as when the vet comes, but it still helps to for her understand the routine of it to allow her to be as relaxed as possible when it’s the real deal. The pause and wait is me waiting for her to tell me she’s ready to go again, it’s subtle but it’s there and it’s important.
#inarathemule #needletraining #positivereinforcement #mule
Merry Christmas friends!
EDIT - so this has gone a bit viral urgh, which I never particularly like but as I can’t stop it - If you are here enjoying our video and would like to pay it back and buy us a small Christmas present… please consider a donation, no matter how small, to our favourite, amazing charity helping equines in Morocco; https://www.jarjeer.org/donate
You may have seen this video before, but it’s a good one so we are sharing it again. We’d like to wish all of our friends and supporters a Merry Christmas.
Lots of love,
Inara (and human). X
#inarathemule #mules #christmas #equine #equestrian #equestrianchristmas #jinglebells #positivereinforcement #libertyhorse #horseagility
I was offering a lot of things yesterday, as we haven’t been able to play much lately due to all the rain. One thing I wanted to do yesterday was sidepass across the field, so here are are 😊
#mule #sidepass #horse #libertyhorse #positivereinforcement
Just found this video from a couple of years back 🤣
The camera was not set up for Inara that day. 😆
#inarathemule #mule #horse #pony #equine #equestrian #disrespectyoursurroundings
Fresh paddock day friends!!
Woohoo!! Aren’t horses boring?!
Ps. Not lame anymore 😆
#inarathemule #mule #equine #equestrian #herd #canter #buck
Yesterday 😊 El tried to film the whole thing, but the road noise was so bad you can’t hear her. So here’s just a few clips to music.
#mule #inarathemule #horsemanship #libertyhorsemanship #positivereinforcement #whipfree #horseagility
Yesterday we tried something new in front of a live audience!
#mules #inarathemule #horseagility #sidepass #horse #equestrian #equine
Hello friends! We are having a good week here. I had a photoshoot at the start of the week, I’ve had a sneak peek at the photos and I can’t wait to show you all!
We managed to do something new today, just before a thunderstorm hit us. We did sidepass over a pole but with a corner! We have some lovely new poles from Jump 4 Joy ! We’ve never had fancy poles before! 😍
Note from El (the human) - I didn’t have to teach her anything here, we have a lot of foundations and she immediately understood what the task was! Although there was a lot of thinking about her leg work, she got this straight away!
#mule #horseagility #libertyhorse #positivereinforcement #horse #equine #equestrian #sidepass #jump4joy
Hello friends! Inara the mule here.
On Saturday we worked in front of a live audience for the first time, as part of El’s Horse Agility Camp. It was a huge deal for me having a group of strangers in my field. I’m not so keen on strangers. I was a little nervous but once we started doing things I was keen to show my stuff… although my concentration wasn’t quite as good as usual as I had to keep watch as to what the suspicious humans were up to at all times! El was super pleased with what we achieved and it was a great experience for me to work with such a huge distraction of my adoring fans sat watching me. El is very keen to give me choice in what I want to participate in so was unsure what I’d offer but, well… I gave the fans what they wanted.
I have a photoshoot next week, more on that soon!
Inara.
#mule #narnamule #horseagility #horsesofinstagram #horsemanship #positivereinforcement #libertyhorse
We were playing with the S bend yesterday and I decided to have a go at it in trot! Nearly nailed it too!
Human here - it’s amazing what she offers me when I’m feeling unimaginative myself and ask her for something she can do in her sleep 😆
Can’t keep up with comments on videos sorry folks. Trying 🙈
#mules #equestrian #horseagility #horses #horsemanship #whipfree #positivereinforcement #libertyhorse
It’s been an ear scratch kind of week ❤️ #mule #equine #equestrian #horses #ear #longears #halfdonkey #love
The key to successfully training your human is to make them feel important. Give them a task to do that they can easily achieve… it will likely be very simple because humans are very simple, BUT make them believe they are doing a good job and reward them heavily! They will learn and stay motivated then. Look at that smile, she managed to hold that hoop at the right time!
#trainingyourhuman #narnamule #mules #horsesofinstagram #horseagility #equestrian #positivereinforcement #horsemanship #libertyhorse
I don’t always like ear rubs, but when I do I reallyyyy like ear rubs.
#mule #horses #equine #pets #animals #feelinggood
