so much for worrying about brakes, couldn't load

Lucy J

Lucy J

Weaver's Tale aka Ciara!!
Dec 5, 2001
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Renfrewshire, Scotland
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really upset, missed the candover valley sponsored ride yesterday, i stupidly crashed my car the previous weekend so couldn't tow my trailer. we practised loading ciara into my friends lorry on wednesday, it was a bit on the small side but she went in, only problem was backing out, she tends to throw her head up and caught it on the roof the 2nd time she backed out. so we left it at that.

yesterday we spent well over an hour trying to load her (we did it in 10 minutes the other night) and she wouldn't go in, used various humane methods ( i won't resort to beating/whipping/forcing). gave up in the end, she had already reared up and fallen on her bum scraping her leg in the process. my friend had to go off on her own and i ended up lunging and putting her back in the field. i am really upset i missed it. I just hope when I get my car back she will still load into my trailer :(
 
:( Very sorry to hear you missed your ride.

I have one or two thoughts on the trailer loading thing. When you say she banged her head and you left it at that... this was, imo, a mistake. Whenever you're training or handling your horse in any manner you always - ALWAYS - want to end on a good note. A bang to the head is not a good note. :D

I would, most likely, have asked her to lead again until she backed out w/o incident then I would have asked her to stand quietly at the back of the trailer until she relaxed THEN I would have called it a day. Adding the episode you had the day of the ride and you're well on your way to training her not to load in a trailer (lorry). :(

Horses are very, very forgiving creatures. And force isn't a bad thing unless it includes abuse - and even then, abuse can many times be overcome w/'force' on a lesser scale. The very act of training involves force to some degree. First the baby is 'forced' away from his dam. Then he's 'forced' to give to halter pressure. Then the 'force' of learning to go under saddle. These are certainly not things a horse would choose for himself so it really does come under the heading of 'forced' behaviours.

Thing is - the force can be tempered w/patience and this is what gives us a willing, obedient horse. Ending all sessions on a positive note is about 28% of what training is about. Understanding that what the horse was doing when you quit the pressure is what the horse has learned to do - that's the other 72%!!! sylvia
 
get yourself a kelly marks book and a monty roberts dually halter....!! and train yourself up or better still ask an RA out to you... i promise you with hand on heart having taken my non loader and my friends non loader to a show and back yesterday.... ok so at times we're the last on the showground and we have to make sure we leave plenty of time in the morning, and ok we may never have the best loaders in the world but not going to something is not an option in our books.... i PROMISE you it's the way forward!!!
 
we were using a dually on wednesday night - after she hit her head we did do a bit more ground work before completely calling it a day, but i didn't want to risk her banging her head again. she is better in a be nice style halter as she doesn't like pole pressure so it discourages her from going up whereas the dually doesn't. usually gentle persuasion is enough to load her, but she had decided the lorry wasn't safe, to be honest she may have been right, as it was not as high as i would like it to have been. she has a long neck so when throwing it up it reaches quite high. trailer is a front unload, so its not a problem. i suppose i may have to go back to the beginning and start again. problem is she needs regular exercise, and i don't have time to ride and practice loading too :-(
 
ok, so something wasn't right.... and perhaps your mare sensed it, were you doing the "backing up" thing when she reared? lots and lots of groundwork in the halter is the way forward..... backing up and then coming to you....in the halter, that will stand you in good stead for loading again..... reward, reward, reward, every impulsion, be it a lean forward , a look of going forward a step forward or even a shuffle... keep voice low and calm, take a deep breath halfway through and sigh if you feel yourself panicking.....never look her in the eye, look at her chest, her travle boots your feet, try not to talk to her when using pressure as she will associate the pressure with you.... keep practicing, and keep calm...... good luck... you probably know all this already but i like to refresh myself every once in a while... yesterday whilst loading my friends horse coming back from a show, the pressure was on him and she was panicking so we talked about crows and grass, wierd i know but it stopped her adrenalin increasing, lowered her heart rate and calmed her down.
 
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