Olivier is certainly one of France's oldest muleteers, if not the oldest.
A colorful character, not always approachable, you have to show him the ropes, and like any self-respecting mule-head, underneath his rugged exterior lies a tender, sensitive heart. The authority on mules in France, this scholar is tireless when he starts talking about mules.
It was the donkey Marquise who paved the way for him, at the age of 5, during walks in Toulouse's Jardin des Plantes.
Then came the animals on his grandmothers' farm, the equestrian center, the Cepière racecourse, the town's marechal-ferrier, the municipal horses that pulled the garbage cans... in short, the virus was inoculated in childhood, and it leaves its mark...
After agricultural studies, Olivier passed his monitorat.
He developed a passion for the Merens horse and other endangered breeds.
Thanks to his father's retirement in the Ariège region, he began breeding his own dogs, cows, horses, donkeys and mules on a small farm perched in the heart of the Ariège region.
A military interlude as a mule driver and rider in the last remount platoon of the 541° Groupe Vétérinaire de Tarbes, where he served the mules more than France... This is how he came to run the Ecole des Mulets de "Méras", created in 88 to promote the Pyrenean mule.
His message: "Loving mules doesn't mean bleating in front of and with them, but trying to understand them instead of imposing our own sense of language, comfort, justice, etc. on them..."
in a word, let's avoid anthropomorphism.
As for those who practice breeding, professional behavior is essential. Without it, we're going to end up with a population that's more numerous than it is good, idle, unemployed and therefore neglected, because I still think that human beings have more regard for their tools than they do for their toys.
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