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Friday, 24 April 2009
Trailer Loading 101 ..or.. Hey, if this dumb broad can do it, so can you.
Mood:
 bright
With our new trailer just waiting for me, I was (of course) eager to trailer out somewhere for a ride....never counting on the possibility that Penny wouldn't load. She'd been trailered for hours/days before I bought her 5 years ago, so figured she'd be fine with it. Nope. She was not having any of it. Two hooves on the ramp and that's where she'd stop and stay. Not ugly, not pissy or fighting. Just NOT going in, thank you very much. 
So I went in search of various and sundry methods of teaching to load with patience and gentleness. Read about/watched on YouTube the John Lyons, Clinton Anderson, Monty Roberts methods of course, but also looked to just your average folks and what they do. I wanted to see the methods that worked for different personality types.
Quickly found that if you have a "moving" horse who's truly afraid of the trailer, then keep those feet moving. My mare is not a "moving" horse, so I chucked that method out. She's a Thinker, as are most drafties.
So I went to Chronicle of the Horse Forums, as well as venturing over to HorseCity.com's Training forum to see what other folks do. After reading one particular post, a light bulb went off and something just told me THAT WAY would work. So I went to the barn last night with My Plan firmly in place.
A fellow border has a Clinton Anderson stick that I borrowed since I knew it was much stiffer than my dressage whip. I ran my lunge line around the escape door hinge and down the side of the trailer. Instead of just hooking it to her halter, though, I went over her head for poll pressure. She's used to this from lunging with my beginner students on her.
With two front hooves on the ramp, I put just enough tension on the lunge line to be annoying and started firmly tapping behind her hip. It took about 45 minutes, tiny hoof step by tiny hoof step, for her to load the first time.
Every single time I saw even the slightest hint of forward motion (up to and including dropping her head to find the Herball Treat I strategically put on the floor 1/2 way in ), I released the line and stopped tapping---praised her voraciously--then asked again for another inch of forward motion. Any backing up was met with a LOUD Giiiiit Up! Forward was the only direction that gave her release and praise. I had no real desire to get her in the trailer actually. It was just a lesson on FORWARD. The loading was the icing on the cake!
I let her stand a while, happily eating the Peep and Herball treats I left in the manger as a reward. I didn't do up the butt bar. Once she started turning her head around to see where I was, I tugged on her tail and asked her to Back. She slowly backed off and looked right to me for leading. With lotsa scritches and GOOD MARES!, I put her in her stall for her dinner (especially since a storm was coming in). Once she and the rain were done, I repeated the whole exercise.
2nd Loading took 25 seconds.
3rd Loading took 10 seconds....and this time I left her in and did up the butt bar.
Because I was calm, UBER patient and not demanding, she never got angry or freaky about any of it. That stick and the line were just enough annoyance that it got into her brain: "HMMMM, standing outside = annoying tapping on my butt and tension on my head. Going In the Box = no tapping or tension AND Peeps! This it be a good thing."
Tonight I will do it alllll over again. Just as if she's never loaded before ever. However, tonight I'll be loading her to the right of the trailer divider, since she will have to be on the right when I haul both her and my full Percheron (who, by the way, walks on/off like it's no big deal....gotta loff it ).
Saturday I'll do it all again but will take her for a short ride to a friend's house. Unload her, let her graze and then reload again to go home.
The goal: Self Loading - We'll get there!
Needless to say, I was on Cloud 9 all night and went to sleep with a GIANT grin on my face.
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