Trailer success

This is huge!

When I got Lexi, I was told she trailered fine, but I think she was used to a slant load that she walked out of facing forward. The first time I loaded her into the straight load trailer, she followed me in fine, but panicked when I closed the butt bar. When I opened it she roared out backwards and fell, hurting herself. With her confidence shaken, things went downhill. Every trip ended with her a tense, sweating mess. She is a stress pooper, so the sight of the trailer would lead to instant runs. She would follow me into the trailer with pressure from behind, but I had to lead her and it took people behind her to get her to agree to go into it. Once inside, she thrashed and stamped and pawed, rocking the truck and trailer so much it was quite a sight. Our trips down the road were accompanied by the trailer jumping behind me as she stomped and bucked in place.

I did everything to try to figure out what was causing her anxiety. I drove like a granny to prevent her being thrown around. I had my friend Mark drive the trailer while I rode in it to see if anything might be causing her worry. The owner of the barn where she's boarded looked around to see what might be upsetting her and suggested bungee cording the divider to help diminish rattles. Both Mark and Kevin suggested getting a hitch with a lower drop to level the trailer, which I did.  After the new drop, the trailer towed better and so did Lexi, but her anxiety was pretty ingrained by then. She started getting better with slow, careful work, but she still needed two people to load her, and I wanted to get her so I could send her in alone. I worked on doing so, and got her so she'd put her front end in for me, but she always got stuck halfway in.

I've been pretty successful loading recalcitrant horses over the years. I'm no cowboy genius who can "natural horsemanship" a horse into a trailer in an hour, but I've been successful with slow, steady work, and usually I can tell if a horse has reached that moment right before saying, "OK, I'll do it. There you go." But Lexi never got there, and she went backwards if I made the tiniest mistake in ways I wasn't used to. I was beginning to think I'd forgotten anything I ever knew about loading horses, or handling them at all, for that matter.

Then I went to the Horse Park with friends. It took two people to load her, as usual, and when we got there she was anxious and a bit het up. I knew I needed to be absolutely solid about bridling her because if she panicked and got away, I’d never get her back. There was no way to get her into a contained area, and the freeway was across a four-foot wire fence beyond some trees. I’ve been at the Horse Park when a horse got out onto the freeway, and there is no way I was going to risk that happening to Lexi (The mare that got onto the freeway was caught just fine, luckily. I had to gallop the borrowed horse I was riding back from the water complex to the stabling area to find someone with a trailer who would go get the mare and hopefully catch her before she got run over. In the end, it all worked out. But still….)

Anyway, my friends were anxious to get on the trail, and I didn’t want to hold them up, so I suggested they go ahead. After they left, I spent time walking Lexi around in her halter, showing her the scary stuff, then taking my slow, sweet time bridling her. I had just started clicker training, so I used what I knew to keep her focused on me and calm.

Finally her bridle was on, and off we went. But when I was done and ready to go home, I had no one to help me get her in the trailer. I worked with her for a while before someone drove by and saw me and helped me out.

At that point I decided from then on my goal was to be able to send her into the trailer solidly, calmly and alone. And I decided to go with my gut in how to do it.

It took a long time (though granted, working with the trailer only once or twice a week slowed things down!). But gradually we got to where she no longer got the stress runs when she saw the trailer. And she stopped running backwards out of it every time she put a foot into it. And she started trusting that I wasn’t trying to kill her. And tonight she walked in calmly, stood while I closed the butt bar, accepted her click and treat quietly, and then started eating hay. It’s the first time she’s been willing to eat hay in the trailer. She refuses to eat anything, even her favorite treats, when she’s stressed, so the fact that she ate her dinner (grain and supplements) and some hay calmly and peacefully while I groomed her from the other side of the divider was gratifying. She unloaded like a champ, waiting till I pulled on her tail and told her “back,” and coming out slowly and carefully, stopping halfway down the ramp as I’ve taught her to get a rub and a click/treat.

Now to get her solid and take her on a short trip. :)

I tell you, having my own horse is bliss. I get to decide everything about how I’m going to work with her and there’s no pressure to perform a particular way or get her going fast or do anything other than how I want to do it. I get to build a relationship with her, and nobody tells me I’m doing it wrong (or if they do, I ignore it!). And to be fair, I’ve had wonderful knowledgeable people help me, giving me suggestions that have made a huge difference to our ability to progress. But ultimately, everything I do is my choice, and for that, I am grateful. :)