Another viewpoint:
Something regarding the difference I've alluded to between what an animal can do a few times and what an animal can sustain: an excerpt from Norman Maclean's excellent short story "USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky":
"...each of the side packs has to weigh the same and together (with the top pack) they shouldn't weigh more than 175 pounds for a horse and 225 for a mule - at least, those were the Forest Service regulations then, but they were twenty-five pounds too heavy if the animals weren't to be bone heaps by the middle of the summer."
Montana author Norman Maclean, some may remember, also wrote "A River Runs through It."
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