Progress in Trailering My Stubborn Appy

My Appaloosa, Honeybee, is a very smart and sensible horse. She is good on the trail and doesn’t spook at much. She has no problem walking over a tarp, through water or a number of other scary things, so why is she so terrified of being closed in a trailer??? She used to trailer rather reluctantly but then after a trip for training and then to the vet the next day, she refused to go in again. I’m not sure if this is what caused the problem, but someone said to tie her to the trailer. I didn’t really think it was a good idea but did it anyway. She went bonkers and flew all over the place. Maybe it brought back some old, bad memories. After that it took a really long time to get her back in the trailer again. It’s been suggested I need a professional trainer and that would probably be good, but I live a long ways from any good trainers. One guy I talked to suggested hobbling her to go in the trailer (of course getting her used to hobbles first). Maybe that’s a good idea, I’m not sure.

However, I proceeded by myself. She finally got in again using the tap from behind method, but she went into outer space if I tried to close the door. Then I got a new trailer that should be better for her. It’s a two horse straight load warmblood trailer with escape doors on both sides at the front. The center divider will move over to make more room. There are butt bars on the front and back so you have the option of tapping from behind or leading the horse in.

One of the big problems she was having was that even a tiny tug on the lead rope freaked her out so there was no way she could be tied in there. Outside the trailer she ties just fine, but inside, forget it. After she was going in, I decided I’d better work on leading her in and getting her used to tugs on the rope. I found that if I asked her to put her head down on the loading ramp and then asked her to step forward with a tiny tug on the rope, she would do it. Then I started leading her farther into the trailer with tiny tugs and occasionally asking her to put her head down. She was fine with it. In training I often use the word “good”, followed by a treat to let her know she has done well ( a version of clicker training). This helped very much. Finally she was leading into the trailer really well.

Unfortunately there were more problems that had to be dealt with in baby steps. If I stepped out the escape door, she freaked again and backed out. We had to work this out gradually until I could finally step out and hold her by the lead rope. You would think we would be getting finished soon, right? No, the next thing was the front butt bar. It was very scary when you touched it and it rattled. We got over this by putting a toy she was used to touching for treats on it. It didn’t take long until the butt bar was no longer scary. The feed bag was scary. Putting food into it helped. Then the next thing was putting the rope through the tie ring. I anticipated a problem and put a loose rope through it very slowly. She eyed it with the whites of her eyes really showing, but it didn’t take too long to get over that. Then I added a few things like grooming and cleaning her feet in the trailer (with the center divider moved over). I think she is getting much more trusting. I just have to remember to really go in baby steps to keep from freaking her out. We still have a few more steps but I think we overcame a hurdle when she became more trusting. I’m planning on still going on in baby steps so don’t expect to hear in the near future that we are trailering all over the place. I made some mistakes in the past in trying to go too fast. Now I know that when you have problem like this, it’s better to go slow and put it off for another day if in doubt. I truly believe in John Lyons’ three basic rules in training horses:

1. You don’t get hurt
2. The horse doesn’t get hurt
3. The horse is calmer at the end of the lesson than before

Whenever I get frustrated I remember these rules and they work. Sometimes I think she is playing games with me, but she really did look terrified in the past.