coon hunting season ?

[Chuck-in-Ohio]

My recommendation to dismount was made tongue in cheek. You would have to be either a super human type, or a complete ratchet head to try jumping one mounted.
I never saw or heard of one that was trained to jump fences with a rider, but in todays world it may be a competitive sport along with barrel racing mules......

 

[JimD]

Many years ago when I was growing up we used to gather at our grandparents house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes we got there a day early or stayed a day late. My uncle Heavy (everybody including his wife called him Heavy and he wasn't the biggest of my uncles) had a gutter business in Detroit. Not much going on outside in Detroit in winter so he stayed at Grandmas for weeks to a couple months and would be there when we got there. If we were lucky, we kids would get to go coon hunting with him at night. We carried flashlights, he carried an inexpensive 22 rimfire. We'd go to a likely area and turn his dogs loose and then listen for them to bark "treeed". Then we'd race through the woods to try and get to the tree before the coon jumped out. Lots of times it was a possum. But sometimes it was a coon. Heavy said he did it to make money off the pelts to pay for the feed for his dogs but I think he just hunted coons because it was fun. That's the reason we wanted to go along. The moms were never fans because we'd come home with dirty clothes and occasionally a scrape or bruise. Just part of the fun.