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I wrote previously about my buddy sour mule, Sassy. I was searching Youtube yesterday for mule training videos to see how I could help her overcome this annoying problem and came across this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L9qpfH72c8
The people in the video claim to be “training” mules. This is not training. It’s animal abuse. As I watched, I alternated between feeling sick to my stomach and wanting to give the “trainers” some of their own medicine.
In case the video is removed, here are the “highlights” of the video.
This mule had a tire tied to his saddle and was forced to drag it around. Then for some reason they started throwing things at him, including the tubs/buckets shown in the next two pictures. If he stopped moving, they used a long whip to make him move.
Out on the trail, the rider on the left whips the mule on the right several times. Another rider later whips the same mule.
This mule is being ridden with his left front leg tied up. Here he is trying to kick the man behind him and is balancing on two legs.
This mule also has a leg tied up and nearly falls over backward when he rears. In the last photo, the same mule is being whipped to make him get up (leg is still tied up).
You don’t have to be a PETA member to be opposed to this kind of treatment of animals. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has some pretty extreme positions. Not long ago Barack Obama was seen swatting a fly during a televised interview. PETA sent him a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows you to trap a housefly and release it outside.
PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has described her group’s overall goal as “total animal liberation.” This means the complete abolition of meat, milk, cheese, eggs, honey, zoos, aquariums, circuses, wool, leather, fur, silk, hunting, fishing, and pet ownership. In a 2003 profile of Newkirk in The New Yorker, author Michael Specter wrote that Newkirk has had at least one seeing-eye dog taken away from its blind owner. PETA is also against all medical research that requires the use of animals, including research aimed at curing AIDS and cancer. Newkirk has said that “even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we would be against it.”
So where does the Christian fall in between the two extremes of abuse and animal rights activists? There are many bible verses that relate to animals. In Genesis after God created Adam and Eve, He gave humans dominion over all the earth, including the animals. I don’t think that meant that we were to treat them abusively, but to treat them with kindness and to use them as needed.
Although initially we were created to be vegetarians (Gen. 1:29,30), later God gave us permission to eat animals (Gen. 9:2,3). And of course animals were used as sacrifices, as commanded by God.
I believe Proverbs 12:10 best sums up what God intended our relationship to animals to be like.
“A righteous man regards the life of his animal, But the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.”
The treatment of the mules in this video is cruel and there is absolutely no excuse for it. I reported the content of the video to the Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (email is investigations at spca.org). I believe the location of the mule "training" is Big Spring Texas. The name of the teenage boy who posted the video is on his Youtube account.
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How can people treat animals like that? thats just sick 
