WAVERLY, WV - - Loading a horse into a trailer is not a separate skill
that horses and their handlers need to learn. Loading is simply a
response to the step cue you've taught your horse through heeding. The
horse that has learned to stay at your shoulder, trust your consistency
and trust that he's got your full attention whenever you're with him. He
has learned that your step is a cue for him to take a step. So he will
match you step for step and walk right into the trailer. The step cues
are the same and the horse's response to them should be the same as if
you were asking him to walk down the barn aisle or into an arena. When
the horse understands heeding, walking into a trailer is just one step
away from what he already knows.
When people have trouble loading their horses its usually because they
didn't introduce the trailer properly in the first place. Horses that
have been forced into trailers or had some other bad trailering
experience get afraid of them. Other horses are not afraid. They have
just decided that they are not going to get in the trailer and are
simply being disobedient.
If you have a horse who is just being evasive and disobedient, the
tactics are a bit different than those you use to reintroduce the
scared horse to a trailer. But you cannot lose your temper or start
fighting. Disobedient horses are spoiling for a fight. Remember that a
horse can only get the energy for a fight from the person who's fighting
with him. If you're not fighting with the horse, he'll quit.
A horse can stand physical pressure for a long time but it can't stand
mental pressure very well at all. If the horse is constantly made to pay
attention to the trailer and to you and is constantly prevented from
fighting, it will eventually just walk in with you. After all, you didn't
let it have any fun by fighting with you.
Your first job is to get the horse's attention and keep his attention.
The disobedient horse will try to change the subject by fighting with
you or turning his head away or digging in before he reaches the trailer
so you have to keep him paying attention to your step cue and any aids
you use to reinforce it. Don't let him get away with changing the subject
by fighting. I repeat, do not argue or fight.
You get the horse's attention and enforce your control by giving the
horse no choice but to stay next to your shoulder. You stay behind the
trailer and heed. You back, halt, walk forward, halt. You must use
definite step cues. If the horse doesn't pay attention to them reinforce
them with your whip aid. Tap on the hindquarters to reinforce walking
forward. To ask for a halt, stop stepping. If the horse ignores that cue,
turn your body parallel to the horse to cue for the halt and use your
whip to block his chest. Push the handle of the whip on his chest at the
front of his shoulder as an aid to reinforce your step toward his
hindquarters to back the horse.
Keep the horse working. Go back and forward and back and forward,
stopping closer to the trailer every time until the horse walks in with
you. Never take the mental pressure off. It only takes one second of rest
for the disobedient horse to build up the energy to try evading your cues
and reinforcing aids again.
If the horse refuses to do what you ask it, ask it to do something else.
For example, if the horse will not walk forward to the trailer and wants
to back away or run to either side, then ask it to back. Ask it to do
turns. Ask it to back, then walk forward. Back, forward, back forward.
Get the horse's full attention back on you by constantly giving him
something to do. Do it quietly without fighting or forcing.
When you feel the horse is paying attention and you have control, ask
the horse to walk into the trailer. You will probably need to reinforce
your step cue with a whip tap on the hindquarters to get the horse into
the trailer. The timing of the whip aid is crucial. The tap must come
just as the horse is deciding whether or not to take the first step into
the trailer. If the horse does not listen to the whip aid the first time,
don't keep tapping. Go back to reinforcing your step cue with a lot of
definite heeding. Heed right behind the trailer, work for accuracy, and
keep up the mental pressure. Then ask the horse to go in again.
Be sure that the horse understands what you want. Keep in mind that the
obedience you want is about the step. When you use a reinforcing aid,
you are reinforcing in the horse's mind that he must obey your step cue.
You are not reinforcing the issue of entering the trailer. If the horse
will not move forward and has stopped paying attention to your cues, you
must strengthen the horse's understanding of the cue and of the response
you want (which is to follow your EVERY step). Or else you need to slow
down and regain relaxation by going back to something the horse
understands such as lunging. If your horse likes to fight you about the
issue of the trailer, spend his energy lunging [behind the trailer]
before you even ask him to walk into the trailer. Finish with the
trailer as the last lesson for the day.
The object is to use your step cues to get the horse to respond in a
certain way whenever and wherever you want. So if you fight with the
horse and manage to get him into the trailer the first day, you have
accomplished nothing. You have accomplished something when the horse
responds consistently to your cues.
There are a lot of people paying a lot of money going to clinics hoping
to learn some mystical technique to put them in control of their horse.
They think that a "real" horse person can just walk into a barn, take
any horse, and go right to doing whatever they want with it. But there
isn't a real horse person I know of who would ever even try to do that.
Real horse people know that control over a horse comes from earning that
horse's respect and trust. You earn that by always telling them what to
do in a calm and horse logical way. Every new thing you ask is just one
step away from what the horse already knows.
© 2000 Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre. All rights reserved. (Reprinted with permission)
