Make Common Sense Common Again!

Today we're going to explore yet another of my training pet peeves, and that is poor practices when teaching your horse to load in a trailer. 

Frequently you will see folks who have a really tough time getting their horses into the trailer when it's necessary to go somewhere, whether it's to a horse show; to trail ride somewhere off-site; to the vet; or wherever else. No matter what, some horses are just deemed difficult to load by their owners. That's usually where I come in. For many years, even before I began a network of many thousands of volunteers who load and haul horses during wildfire evacuations and other emergencies, I've been everyone's "go to" wherever I happen to be, for getting those tough to load horses on that trailer with as little stress as possible, and maximum efficiency. Call it a gift, I call it common sense training for the horse.

See, things need to make sense to our horses in order to become easy when we're introducing something new during training, regardless of whether it's doing groundwork, or working under saddle. When we break things down into simple steps, our horses are far more likely to understand what we're asking. With trailer loading, first step back and think about what we are asking that horse to do: Climb into a big, noisy, often hot, metal box that moves in unnatural (to the horse) ways; stand and ride quietly as the trailer is being pulled down the highway; and we want them to get into that box oftentimes when we are under stress or in a hurry, which adds to the cautiousness our horses often exhibit when we're trying to load them.

One regularly suggested tip to encourage horses to be in the trailer, is feeding them inside the trailer. Unfortunately, all this generally does is teach the horse how to get in, and then get right back out of the trailer even quicker. Doing so literally does nothing to accomplish safe trailer loading, and in fact it can become dangerous when the horse grabs a bite of hay only to race back out of the trailer. One guess as to why this is counterproductive? Now, you'll occasionally hear from those who suggest this method how, "It always works perfectly fine for me, and I've never had a problem!" which is okay... until the time it DOESN'T work, and they'll have taught the horse a dangerous bad habit

Since one of the mainstays that I do is emergency evac hauls, particularly during wildfires, it is absolutely essential that horses will hop right in the trailer quickly, easily, and with zero drama. When you have a fire a very short distance away, heading your direction, it's vital to be able to get horses loaded and out of there as quickly as possible. Without fail, we will encounter at least one or two horses that don't want to load, and then we're faced with the dreadful decision -- do we waste precious time trying to get that recalcitrant animal on the trailer, or do we leave that horse behind and move forward to pick up other easier horses? Nobody, NOBODY, wants to leave horses behind during an evacuation.

Back to the topic at hand... please do your horse a favor, and teach them how to load by not waiting until the last minute. And for heaven's sake, don't attempt to do so by parking your truck and trailer in the pasture then feeding your horse in the trailer!

~SFTS