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Muffin

Muffin is a little Conker coloured Mule (half pony, half donkey) who gets along very well with our donkey, Mr Jingles. You've heard the saying 'stubborn as a mule' .....he looks so sweet and innocent but can be difficult to handle  if you don't respect him and meet him halfway. However if you do he is very good and a very amusing character to have around. He makes a half 'neigh' and half 'eey-oore' sound due to being a donkey/pony cross.
February 08
Muffin is well in himself and he is very healthy.
He has been his usual cheeky self though and has kicked a couple of people recently, although he hasn't caused any major injuries.
He had to have his flu and tetanus injections and he was not happy with that, he tried his best to kick the vet and she found it very difficult to get near to him without being injured, he also did a lot of bucking and rearing at the staff who were holding him.
Eventually though he had his injection, had a polo mint and went happily into his field.
He has a very cute wooly winter coat too so the cold weather hasn't seemed to bother him too much.

May 2007
Muffin is very well and happy and he has a new friend in our donkey Mr .jingles, who he loves playing with although they do worry us sometimes with how rough they play.
When we first introduced the donkey into the herd with Muffin, Jasper and Thelwell, Mr Jingles was over excited to have the company of a 'half donkey' and he would constantly chase after poor Muffin and try to play all day and every day, which Muffin really was not up to, being so much older than the donkey and also being rather overweight and having very short legs, he found the chasing too hard and was often out of breath and we would have to let him in with Jasmine and Mr .Pickwick just so he could have a rest.
It was not all bad for Muffin though and he often joined in the games enthusiastically, play fighting and rearing up, kicking and squealing and sometimes sitting down like a dog.
Thankfully the game playing has settled down now and for the most time Muffin will be seen grazing quietly next to Mr .jingles and enjoying his company.
It was a sad time for little Muffin in the middle of May though as his old friend Beauty was put to sleep due to bad problems with her hooves.
As he had not spent too much time with her in the previous months it didn't seem to hit him too hard but there is no doubt that he missed her at first and would often call out to her.
On the day that Beauty was put to sleep we made sure that Muffin was nearby to be company for her and afterwards we let him loose with her so that he knew what had happened and didn't think that she had simply been taken away, as it is said that is what animals think if they do not get the chance to mourn over their friend once they are gone. It is often recommended by vets and animal behaviorists, and we could see in Muffins eyes he knew that Beauty had gone and after a few minutes he seemed to accept this,left Beauty and pulled us toward the door to tell us that he wanted to go back onto the paddock with his friends.
That night we moved Mr Jingles the donkey into Beauty's stable so that he did not become too lonely and he seemed to really appreciate this and has settled well with his new neighbor.

July 06
Muffin is looking very shiny and healthy as he has now lost all of his winter coat.
He has been enjoying a lot of extra time out in the paddock moseying around with Jasper and Thelwell and occasionally joining Jasmine and Pickwick, as they are in a separate paddock due to Jasmine’s ill health and Pickwick’s bullying antics.
When two new horses arrived recently they met Muffin over the wall as they were walked to the sanctuary. They really did’t know what to think of him, as they have never met a Mule before! They had a sniff and a squeal and came into the sanctuary looking very confused.
Muffin’s waistline has expanded rather a lot due to all the spring & summer grass,so we are watching his diet carefully. He gets a few apples & carrots along with some chop and a bit of Garlic to help keep the flies away.

 

March 2006
Muffin is in good health and is happy to be in a larger paddock now with more grass and Beauty, Jasmine and Pickwick to keep him company.
He's been very well behaved at going across the road outside the sanctuary apart from one occasion when he spotted a very scary leaf on the pavement! He proceeded to spin around and snort a bit with his eyes out on stalks.But we soon persuaded him it as no monster and he went into his stable calmly.
He makes us smile every day when we go to bring him in to his stable, as he will be watching out for us and as soon as he sees us coming toward his paddock he will give a little squeal and leap and then trot very fast up to the gate.

January 06
Muffin has been difficult to understand lately because he has mostly been good but occasionally reverts to his old ways. He has been difficult since he had a sore eye and we had to clean it which he hated!  He also had to have his Tetanus injections which worried him a lot and we think these events have set back his trust in humans again. However we will soon gain his trust again with a bit of handling and a few treats thrown in! He had his teeth checked and rasped too which was difficult but thankfully we do have a very kind, patient and sympathetic vet too which really helps.
 

November 05
Muffin is a mule we are very proud of at the moment.
He had a check up from the vet for probably the first time in his life. This is because he has now been trained and is much easier to handle. The vet checked his heart rate and breathing which were all fine, then sedated him for the rest of the dentist work. Although he was still quite difficult and did a lot of bucking, kicking
and rearing he was very different than he would have been before his training. We could see he was genuinely worried about the strange situation but he was also trying his best to be good and stand still. He was found to have a healthy mouth with only a few sharp edges which were rasped down.
Muffin came out of the sedation very quickly and went back out in the field with his friends where he seemed to completely forget about the whole thing.

October 05
Muffin is coming along leaps and bounds with his training. We are very, very pleased to be able to take his head collar off in the field as well as the stable after years of wearing one constantly.
We think he looks much more distinguished without a halter on and we can see the real Muffin underneath which is lovely as he is exceptionally handsome.
The only trouble he is causing at the moment is squeezing through the gate at every opportunity. The poor person trying to lead him is squashed to the side while he trots off to eat the fresh grass, turning his bottom as if to kick anyone who dares to catch him.

August 05
Muffin is fine and is still coming along with his training very quickly. He has changed into a bit of a softy and we often stop to give him cuddles when we are working out in the fields.
We are also able to touch his ears and the top of his head much more easily. We have done some thinking and have concluded that he was probably twitched by his ears when he was younger, this would explain his panic whenever we touched his head area before, and also the difficulty for years in changing his head collar. Now, when we touch his head he worries for a second then lowers his head and goes drowsy. We can then work our way up his long ears and give them a good rub, then he will seem to look at us as if to say sorry for worrying so much about his ears in the past when he enjoys it so much now!
 

July 05
We are very very proud of muffin and pleased with his progress. We are over the moon to now be able to groom him all over, lift his back hooves up and walk him around the sanctuary with little or no problem.
There is still a long way to go as we still have difficulty catching him sometimes and he will still have bad days where he will try to kick anyone who walks behind him!
We try to walk him past things he would have before found scary and introduce him to new places and different situations. This is going so well and he is now much braver and definitely has a lot more trust in humans. Muffin had cut his face in the field and we were even able to bathe it in salt water and apply a healing cream easily. We never dreamed we would be able to do this before we received help with his training from the Learning To Listen center.
 

May/June 05
Muffin went on a holiday to star in the 'Festival of Horses' show. He went for some training with a horse trainer near Masham in North Yorkshire for a week as a last effort to try to help him with his behavioral problems.
We were quite upset to see him go although he loaded onto the trailer well and did not seem to be too sweated up on his arrival at the Learning To Listen center.
Unfortunately for Muffin, on his arrival the only available space for him was with two large spotted pigs! Muffin was not too impressed with this but within the next few days he became used to them. When we visited him on the Saturday he was stood in the shelter with the two pigs soundly asleep behind him. He was later given another small pony to be friends with, who he absolutely adored. He was moved to a lovely small paddock with his new friend with a small stream running through which he loved to drink out of. Adjoining this paddock was a pen with orphaned lambs who Muffin kept going to investigate!
Sunday the 29th May was his first day at his demonstration with a crowd, which was conducted in a safe round pen where the trainer is safe from dangerous animals and nervous animals can't hurt themselves.
We expected Muffin to become quite nervous when he was in an unfamiliar place with loud music and a crowd, but he surprised us by having a good sniff and meet of the crowd and a good roll around in the sand on the ground!
The trainer, Maya, soon found that Muffin was not so 'wild' as we had thought, more that he is very stubborn, dominant and set in his ways having gone for 10 years doing as he pleased and bossing around humans while being treat like a king!
He did not really respond to being chased away but tried his best to argue as he is so used to humans doing whatever he tells them with his body language. Maya did very well with him, she is a very talented and experienced horse trainer who has trained under Monty Roberts in America. She was very firm and consistent, but kind to Muffin when he was listening to her and being good.
When it came to touching around his back legs though, Muffin showed how naughty he could be and kicked Maya quite a few times.
By the end of the session though, she had made a lot of progress and he was much more responsive .
The crowd loved Muffin so much that he got three offers of a new home, but as we love him so much and he has so many sponsors we don't think he will be going anywhere.
Another training session was on the Monday, where the problem this time was not so much him kicking but getting a halter on his head! A French student was training him this time who made a lot of progress with him, but a fence had to be brought around him to be able to get near him to put a halter on. Obviously he had remembered how the trouble had started the day before where he had to do some thinking and working and he decided he didn't want to play again today!
The following day Muffin was due to come home, but he seemed to have decided he liked it at his new home after all and so took 45 minutes to catch.
He loaded into the trailer fine with his new red training halter.
Muffin was pleased to be back and gave a few very loud greeting calls. We are sure he's told the rest of the ponies in his paddock of his adventure with the pony, the pigs and the lambs.
We hope to be able to take him back to next years 'Learning to Listen' festival so that he can show off what progress he has made in a year. We are hoping to teach him a few clever tricks as he is a very intelligent little chap and we really want to make him realize that learning and being nice to humans can be fun!
 

Click on pictures to enlarge

		Muffin with friends at show
Playing hard to catch	I'm not going in there!	Trapped	Doing what ......
.....Muffin.....	.....does best !!!	Being good at last	His pig friends

April 05
Muffin has been especially well behaved lately and seems to have become much braver about a lot of things he used to be afraid of.
For those of you who don't already know, Muffin is a donkey/pony cross who had never been properly tamed due to an unfortunate past. We can just about lead him around and into the paddock daily, but he is extremely defensive if we attempt to touch anywhere below his neck.
We have had a humane handler visiting the sanctuary who is training at a kind of 'horse whispering' center in North Yorkshire. There they have sessions with a lady called Sarah who was trained in America under Monty Roberts (the famous horse whisperer).
We are looking into the possibility of having Muffin transported to the next demonstration so that Sarah can work on him to help him overcome his fear of humans. Obviously we would have to send his best friend, Beauty on with him as company to keep him calm .
On Tuesday we also changed Muffins head collar, we have to leave his head collar on always as otherwise he would be impossible to catch! Lynn, one of our trustees had chosen Muffin a very fetching green and yellow head collar so all of the staff got on the other side of the gate to avoid being kicked and as some fed treats and reassured him, the others held him and changed his head collar. It all went very well and Muffin looks a very smart mule!

Muffin having a roll around !

 

Click pictures to enlarge

Muffin with his friend Mr Jingles

Sleepy boy