Establishing a niche
Ontario’s Don Forsyth buys, sells and trains mules
By LARRY MEYER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Monday, March 17, 2008 11:16 AM PDT
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| Don Forsyth, owner of Don and John’s Mules, has ‘Swanee’ show his stuff in one of the training arenas at the Forsyth ranch north of Ontario. Forsyth buys, trains and sells mules. |
ONTARIO - As agriculture businesses go, it is a small operation, but Don Forsyth, owner and operator of Don and John’s Mules, LLC., Ontario, has found he has created a niche.
Forsyth said, as far as he knows, there are no other mule training business around and has garnered customers from throughout much of the western United States.
Actually, when he started training his own mules, 10 years ago, Forsyth was not planning to go into business, but after his were trained, people took notice and began approaching him about training their mules.
It has been a full-time business for the last seven years, Forsyth, who used to run the garbage service in Ontario, said.
“I’ve been around livestock all my life,” Forsyth said.
At first, news of his business spread through word- of-mouth, but now he also advertises.
“We buy (mules) and train them,” Forsyth said.
The mules are trained for trail riding, pack trains or just pleasure riding, Forsyth said.
“We get them from all over,” he said.
“A lot of mules never get trained,” Forsyth said, despite the best intentions of their owners, and then they are put up for sale. That is when Forsyth steps in.
“We buy them all over the Northwest — Washington, Oregon and Idaho,” he said. “We take them through a full training program.”
That training includes taking the mules over and through obstacles they may face in real conditions.
The “we” includes Bob DeSentis, who starts the mules on their training programs.
“He is the one who gets bucked off,” Forsyth said.
Charlie Prentiss is the mule finisher. Both work for Forsyth full-time.
“We have about 20 mules in training,” Forsyth said, adding they have had as many as 25 to 30 mules at one time.While he owns most of them, eight of the mules are animals brought to him by other owners to train. They are being trained to meet their owners needs, he said.
Besides the training they receive on the 5-acre farm, north of Ontario, the mules practice on trails in the northeast part of the state.
“We train them up in the Minam country and Hells Canyon,” Forsyth said.
Customers come from all over the West, he said, as far away as Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. His Web site is http://donandjohnsmules.com.
