"The guys from the water department asked me how big the dog box on my truck was," Burke told the Eagle Observer. "They told me that they had a pretty big animal running loose near city hall. When I saw the mule, I knew that the box would not work."
The mule's owner, Shane Walkingstick, contacted wranglers Melissa Graves-Funk and Kaitlyn Funk for help capturing the animal after it escaped from its corral on his property.
The trio, joined by Burke, managed to corner the mule in a fenced-in area, but the animal remained elusive and resisted being restrained. A bystander managed to get a lasso around its neck, but the mule slipped free of the rope moments later.
Rodney Graves, Graves-Funk's brother, arrived with his fiance Jennifer Rumsey, two horses and a trailer. The pair mounted their horses and Rumsey, owner of the Luca-Don Equestrian Center in Gentry, was able to rope the mule.
The mule was loaded into the trailer and taken to Graves' home, where the animal and Walkingstick's second mule will be calmed and trained before returning home.
