Does the carrot on a stick method work on a mule?

Question

Some idioms ("chase the carrot" / "carrot and stick") and a popular image (as shown below) suggest that you can make a mule move forward (and pull a cart), by placing a carrot or some other food hanging from a stick, in front of its face.

For example, a dictionary of urban idioms explains:

"chase the carrot": attempting to reach the unreachable, in the old days a carrot was tied to a stick in front of a wagon's mule or stubborn horse to make them step forward and walk ahead... they were never able to reach the carrot.

Is this known to really happen so? Have this (or some variation) been used as a practical locomotive trick? (things like the rabbit at dog races don't count; the key is that the animal itself moves the object it's seeking).

carrot without the stick

carrot and stick method usually means punishment and reward, aka hitting with the stick and tempting with the carrot — ratchet freak, Oct 04 '13 at 13:01
@Gordon it is all about; being bad against it, when it does wrong and being good against it, when it does right. — Berker Yüceer, Oct 04 '13 at 14:23
From the question description (not the title) I think that Gordon meant this classical image: BTW in Czech we do not say "carrot and stick" but "sugar and whip". — pabouk - Ukraine stay strong, Oct 06 '13 at 11:18
@Chris I think you can can get a mule to pull a cart merely by harnessing it to a cart: neither the carrot nor the stick is always necessary. — ChrisW, Oct 07 '13 at 22:29
@ChrisW, but does the carrot motivate the mule to walk? Can you change the mule's direction by moving the carrot and so on? — Kenshin, Oct 08 '13 at 03:10
@Gordon, I once placed a peg on the end of my dogs tail, and it kept running around in circles trying to reach the peg. — Kenshin, Oct 08 '13 at 03:11
Can this question be taken off hold? The rewording makes it a lot clearer. Thanks @leonbloy! — Gordon, Oct 09 '13 at 10:12

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 10 '17 at 09:42

Yes it works to coax the animal to move, but probably not as means for consistent forward locomotion. Some evidence:

Footage of a man "training donkey to move with a target stick/lure/feeder."¹
Amateur video showing a "pony move under saddle while being baited with a carrot dangling from a string attached to a stick."²
From Every Woman's Encyclopedia, 1910-1920:

Stick-and-carrot race. Each competitor tries to incite her steed to its top speed by dangling a fine carro' before its nose spirits of the place, who will be sure to enter into the fun, and make things go with a swing, before inviting the less enterprising boys and girls and smaller children.³

My basic knowledge of animal conditioning tells me it wouldn't work for too long. There must be a reward at least some of the time for any positive conditioning to work. But once conditioned, it might work. There's that old study were a guy conditioned pigeons to peck at a plate until exhaustion. — , Feb 13 '17 at 21:05

Does the carrot on a stick method work on a mule?

1 Answers1