Do mules hate raccoons?

Winter is finally starting to loosen its icy grip on us here in the mountains. We have switched from sub-freezing nights to torrential rains and -for today anyway-warm and sunny. If you can believe the computer, though, it's supposed to start raining again on Tuesday.

There is so much standing water on the ground that our poor mules and horses were up to their knees in mud. Our mare, Miss Kelly, looked like a pickup that had been out 4-wheeling in a bog. We decided it was time to put them out in the pastures, even if the ground was still spongy. We put the grown-ups out on the 7 acres and brought Princess Tiger Lilly (our 2-year old mule) and Gunner (a pretty yearling paint) to the field by our house.

Now, everyone knows that mules don't like dogs, so a side benefit of having Princess around is that the neighbor dogs that are let loose by their irresponsible owners to roam the neighborhood are giving our place a wide berth - Yay! no more dog poop to deal with.

I was surprised, however, the other morning. I saw what I thought was a cat coming across the neighbors field -hard to tell exactly what it was when people let their grass get over a foot tall. As soon as it crossed over into our field, though, Princess exploded. She raced across the field and tried to stomp it into the ground. The two of them zigged and zagged across the grass until the smaller animal finally had the presence of mind to throw itself through the far neighbor's split rail fence. It circled back around and finally came back toward the house, being careful to stay on the neighbor's side of the fence. I then realized it was a raccoon! He was out in full daylight at nine o'clock in the morning - highly unusual for a night-dweller. I finally figured out that our mule had kept him at bay the night before so he couldn't get to the leftover catfood on our deck - a nightly ritual on his part that will wake you from a dead sleep with the racket he makes. He was making another desperate attempt to get supper so he could bed down for the day, but Princess wasn't going to let it happen.

I guess the moral of the story is that having a mule will help you keep the dogs, the cougars and now the raccoons out off the property they patrol. Another reason to honor the under-appreciated mule.