Trailer Loading

In my previous blog, I shared a cartoon about trailer loading, and then chatted a bit about how we, as a community, really need to do better in this area of our lives. Trailer loading is not a joke to the horses, only to us.

When I headed out on the road to teach clinics for the public around 2008, I hadn’t done much trailer loading, really. So I got some serious “on the job training”, you could say. It was frightening, it was sometimes terribly dangerous, but mostly it was very instructive and often very rewarding. My point is, I figured it out over time. I tried things and watched and compared. I’m still working on it.

It’s super easy to load a horse who hasn’t been taught NOT to load, if they are well halter broke. But that’s not what most people are dealing with when it comes to trailer loading. Most folks are dealing with a horse who has been taught to GO TO WAR, who has been taught to work harder on how to stay out than how to get in, and who have found more peace and relief by staying out than by getting in. All of this is from the human. All of this is “taught”, mostly accidentally. Most everyone is laying in a bed someone else made, when it comes to trailer loading.

We need to do better. We can do better.

To that end, I’m going to “give away” (because very few people ask for trailer loading lessons anyway) my most useful observations and action plans about trailer loading. Because your horse deserves to feel better about it, and I’d really like for you to not get hurt if we can help it. Let’s just do better.

1. Become fairly skilled with some kind of ground work. In other words, in order to trailer load a horse (which can be “black belt” level ground work), you need more skill than just being able to lead a horse from the barn to the arena. There are many instructors out there who are DYING to teach people solid, practical ground work that will help them handle trailer loading their horse. This is simply our responsibility as horse owners. To reiterate: trailer loading a horse is an ADVANCED ground work skill.

2. Understand that if we have a horse who has been taught NOT to load, we are going to have to work through EVERY SINGLE THING he’s ever done near the trailer that he feels has gained him relief or peace in some way. He is going to have to unlearn everything he’s ever done back there, and there can be layers of it. The horse will give us a “History of How I Was Taught NOT To Load”. The horse will have to try everything they have ever tried and benefitted from, before they can try something “new”. He is going to have to UNLEARN before he can RELEARN. This can be a long process.

3. The human needs to be able to be completely “flat” emotionally during this entire process. If a person can’t do that, then hire the job out, you don’t qualify. THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU, even if you ARE the one who taught the horse to not load. This is about helping the horse get to a better place in his trailer loading so one day, if he had to load to save his life, he could and would. This is literally a life-or-death skill for a horse, so we need to put our emotions on the shelf and get PRESENT and be a good, pragmatic teacher for the horse. Have some empathy for how bad a horse feels if he has trouble loading.

4. I use pressure/feel-and-release/relief for trailer loading. There are many different “methods” of trailer loading, and lots of them are good, and effective. Just choose something and get busy. Whatever learning theory you go with, some of the following observations might be helpful even if you choose something different than pressure/release.

5. The EYES have it. Over the years, what I’ve noticed is that the horse’s eyes will basically tell us everything we need to know. If we can get the eyes to go in the trailer, the feet will follow. If the horse is looking left as he walks up to the trailer (and not looking in the trailer), that’s the direction he’s planning to go. If he’s looking over your head or past you, he’s planning on running you over rather than getting in. If he’s looking behind himself, that’s where his mind is, back there, not in the trailer. His feet won’t go somewhere his mind won’t go, and his mind is going where he’s looking.

If looking in the trailer scares him, getting in it is going to scare him more. The eyes will tell the truth. If he can’t look at it, he can’t get in it. Simple.

So we can shape the eyes. Make looking at or in the trailer a good thing. Build on that. Develop the skill to send the eyes where you need the feet to go. Believe the eyes.

Also about the eyes: if the eyes are pointed away from the trailer, this is a REWARD. It is a RELIEF for him to be able to take his eyes away from the trailer. So if the horse does not get in, and we turn him away from the trailer to “try again”, when his eyes turned away from the trailer, he got a REWARD for not getting in. If we circle him at the back of the trailer, only ¼ of that circle has his eyes pointed at the trailer. The other ¾ of that circle is RELIEF for him.

A lot of times, once the horse is looking in the trailer and blinking well and breathing well, they just get in, on their own. So that’s the spot I’m working towards.

6. If, the closer the horse gets to the trailer, the more pressure there is, then he’ll start backing off earlier and earlier. Why would he get in it if the 6 feet before the back of it is a sh*t show?

7. A horse who pauses and looks away on the way to the trailer is working on turning into a horse who doesn’t load. This is a slippery slope, and “what happened before what happened happened.”

8. Have a clear cue for the horse to get out, and if they get out before the cue, send them back in until they stay in and wait for the cue. We want the horse thinking about staying in until we need him to get out, not thinking about getting out as soon as the wheels stop. Lots of wrecks happen right there. Seeing a horse start to come out, and then with just a kiss or a touch, change their mind and get back in calmly is MAGICAL!

9. Trailer loading is not about being able to put enough pressure on him that he “escapes” into the trailer. That might be a “stage” as he unlearns and relearns, but he needs to be able to get in the trailer the same way he’d walk through the arena gate or a stall door. Flat. Calm. Blinking. Relaxed. If it takes overwhelming force to scare him into the trailer, we’re not done yet. That’s not the standard.

There are two everyday things that will get a horse beaten, and will cause humans to lose their ever-loving minds: trailer loading and trouble giving his feet.

We can do better. The information is out there. This isn’t our first rodeo. We just need to believe it’s important and do our best to help our horses.

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