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Discussion on Teach a young horse to load
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Member:
maggienm
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Posted on Friday, Apr 13, 2007 - 11:47 pm:
I have recently been able to help a friend load her horse in a trailer. Using a method of tap when horse balks and release when the horse goes forward I was able to load and reload this horse that had refused for several hours.
Today she loaded in about 5 min.
I have used this method successfully with other difficult to load horses.
My question is would you use this same method with a yearling that behaves well?
Thank you.
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Member:
juliem
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Posted on Saturday, Apr 14, 2007 - 12:30 am:
Absolutely!! I just accomplished this today with my new yearling who was barely halter broke. First, establish away from the trailer, that the tap on the hip means move forward. I did this a lot, asking her to move forward between two barrels, between me and the fence, over a rail, between buckets, over a rubber mat and even over a small step up platform if you can safely create one. When the yearling completely understands that the tap means go forward--and NEVER tap when he/she is already going forward or even giving you a forward try--you're ready to try the trailer. Read Dr. O's article on trailer loading beforehand so you have the concept firmly in mind. It's important to reward any try and stay calm. Give yourself a lot of time and make the trailer a pleasant place.
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Member:
cgby1
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Posted on Saturday, Apr 14, 2007 - 5:35 pm:
Last summer I had to train my yearling filly to trailer load so that we could take her to a hospital for surgery. I used the same method and was able to get her to load. I could get her to back off when she had the front two feet in but then she would jump in her back feet at the same time. Then my large son and I could not get her to back off. She would go up and forward and we finally gave up for fear that someone was going to get hurt. She was small enough to turn in our slant load, so we left it at that. I later realized that she had a problem with backing off the edge of the concrete with a HUGE DrOp of two inches!! At first I had to send her in a tight circle until a hind foot stepped off and then I let her stand there and think about it. After a few more times I could finally get her to step back straight off the edge. So we have been learning to back off a lot of things and down slopes. I had never had a problem backing her but I had never asked her to back off of anything. So I would suggest that you do that before you start loading.
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Member:
maggienm
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Posted on Saturday, Apr 14, 2007 - 9:12 pm:
Good tip Cynthia,
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