Have a BIG mare that is horribly buddy sour, sort of. I can take her away from the other horses, she will work alone fine. Will load in the trailer, will stand quietly in the trailer when we get to our destination.
Problems start when we get home - she is so anxious to get back to her minions & see what they have done in her absence she stops, kicks, yells & bangs around in the trailer horribly. Have tried waiting until she quiets to let her out, but she won’t stay quiet for any length of time, so hard to catch her being good. If she gets any worse she will become dangerous to herself, or me trying to unload her.
Have also tried unloading & then tying in her stall for a bit before she gets to go out with the guys. Not helping…
What about leaving in the trailer, coming back home, and then leaving again without her getting out? Rinse and repeat until coming home is a non event.
Another option is coming home, unloading and going in the arena and working her. This way she doesn’t get the reward of going out with her buddies, and isn’t allowed to stand and work herself up about not going out with her buddies.
I’ve gotten pretty non confrontational in my old age. If there is an edible she loves I’d give it to her the moment you stop. Hopefully to give you time to get the trailer opened up. Take her off and straight to her buddies. With the usual rules of good behavior in place of course. Thwarting her will probably just get her more worked up. And while driving around the block or working her at home may work, it will require a big investment of time on your part.
Unfortunately, I can feel her start to bang around coming up the driveway, so there is not even a 2 minute window to do that. I’d be rewarding the bad behavior.
This. And then, when you are done working her, put her back on the trailer and let her stand there. If she starts throwing a fit again, take her off the trailer, work her, and then put her back on the trailer and give her the opportunity to stand.
The goal here is to make the trailer “the good place” where she gets to stand and rest.
If she wants to be anxious, then put that energy to work.
Note this only works when you have a horse who is naturally on the lazy side. You’d be doing this for eternity with my late mare, because she WANTED to work and move and do things.
Just to provide a different viewpoint: sometimes with these horses that “work up” (instead of working down) just getting them out of the situation they’re finding upsetting is a better path forward. Sometimes they’re not just upset about the situation but upset because they know something upsetting is coming, and it’s like this self perpetuating problem that just gets bigger and uglier the longer you leave them to figure it out.
Sometimes just getting them out of it shows them that yo nothing upsetting is happening here and you are FINE. And the anxious behavior goes away.
I know it’s very anti what many of us were taught about not letting them “win” and not reinforcing behavior we don’t like. But if this continues to be an issue and other methods aren’t getting you there, it’s another approach to try out.
Depending on the length of the haul, could you withhold hay for the ride home and give her something SUPER DUPER YUMMY to hang out in the trailer with once you’re at your destination?
Also - sometimes we aren’t thinking from “their side”. By the time you load up in the morning, get where you’re going, do what you’re going to do, load up again, get home - she is mentally DONE. Can you blame her for wanting off the damned trailer? None of mine are as quiet standing in the trailer once back at home than they are when they’re still a little fresh and aren’t fed-up with the human shenanigans.
Welllll… you could try a mild sedative when you leave your venue. Depending on how long the trailer ride is back home.
I feel your pain… it’s a nasty problem to deal with.
Disagree. Even a horse who WANTS to work can learn to stand quietly and enjoy the peace they are getting (reward). And that’s not just for trailer loading. The best thing you can teach your horse is PATIENCE. A horse that can’t stand still hasn’t been taught how to stand still.
OP isn’t going to fix this issue in an hour. Or in weeks. Certainly not in one session. But you make small improvements and you find “good places” to quit for the day, to build on each session. That’s probably the biggest factor - knowing when to push and when to back off.
And it’s not about working the horse to a sweaty pulp. Maybe it’s something as simple as a few hindquarter yields back and forth in each direction, moving their feet, and then putting them right back on the trailer. Horse immediately has a fuss, no big deal, take them off, move those feet for 2 minutes, and then put them right back on. Maybe this time the horse stands for 15 seconds before making a fuss. Great! That’s 15 seconds longer than the first time. Take them off the trailer, work them around again, load back up. Maybe horse immedieatly has a fuss again. So what. Don’t make a big deal of it. Unload, work the feet, get them moving, and load back up. Maybe horse stands quietly for 10 seconds without moving and you have to get on with your day so you pick that point to quit for the day. Great! Praise them before they start making a fuss, back off the trailer, and then go put them away with their buddies. Even though you maybe only got 10 seconds out of the deal, you rewarded them by letting them go where they want. Might take a few sessions but pretty soon the horse will figure out that if they make a fuss, they have to move their feet. If they stand quietly, they get to go back with their buddies. They are smart. They figure it out right quick.
Oh she’d stand. I could tie her to the side of the trailer and she was fine. I could tie her anywhere and just leave her, for hours. Im pretty western that way. She just didn’t want to be IN it anymore, and if you took her out to work her, she would have seen that as a reward not a punishment.
Your method would not have worked, and with her thoroughbred stamina (evidenced by them racing her damn near weekly for 47 races) you would have been there till the second coming if you kept trying.
Stamina has nothing to do with it. It’s the proper TIMING of what you are doing with the horse that matters to them, and how they view something as a reward versus undesirable.
If your horse can be trained to stand quietly outside the trailer, there is no reason she couldn’t be trained to stand quietly inside it as well. The fact that she’s inside the trailer is irrelevant. The trailer is just an object. You could replace “trailer” with tied in the barn … tied for the farrier… tied at the hitching post … etc. The object doesn’t matter. The horse has associated a certain task or object with anxiety and uncertainly (hence why they can’t stand still and are engaging the “flight” response to keep themselves safe) and they have to be taught that the task instead CAN be a calm rewarding place. Figuring out what you can do to teach the horse what the correct response should be, and where they get a reward for that correct response; that’s what matters.
You’re not asking them to stand there for an hour quietly before you walk away. That’s not realistic nor achievable. You will never gain any ground working a horse too long or pushing them past the mental capacity they have for that day, and will only make things worse. The timing is also knowing when it’s okay to push them, and when you need to quit for the day. You are simply looking for their EFFORT to try to do what you are asking. That’s all. Effort. But you find a way to make the inside of that trailer a GOOD place so that they want to TRY to just stand there and relax.
If you’ve chosen to pick your battles and have chosen to not address your horse’s anxiety of being on the trailer, that’s your horse, your choice, and more power to ya. But OP is not happy with their horse and is looking to change that.
So! What do you suggest to the OP? So far, you’ve tried to say why my method won’t work. So what does work? How would you fix your mare? How does OP fix her horse?
My horse I’m referencing is dead, but she was stagnant in the trailer-standing thing. She was a DOER. That was her JAM. She wanted to go DO things and SEE things and the trailer represented NEW and EXCITING things to DO and SEE.
I recognized that in her. That was how she was wired, beginning to end. If you did what you suggest, she would get on the trailer and immediately start jigging. If the doors to the trailer were open, that was her trigger - that meant the DOING and the SEEING was close. This was not going to change in her.
I’ve made my suggestion, and that’s to have some kind of super special hay or snack that only comes out when standing in the trailer at home. You could also try pawing/kicking anklets if she’s absolutely tearing the trailer down.
That said - I’m in the camp of get her out of the effing trailer. At this point this horse has done hours of work for the human, willingly and quietly. Your #1 priority when you get home should be to make the animal that has put up with you all day comfortable. Kind of like at the end of a run, or round - get off and loosen that girth. They work hard for us, they do all-the-things for us, we should be able to put aside our human desires just once and think about it from their perspective. I don’t expect a horse happy to be home and done with my crap for the day to stand stock-still in the trailer.
I know at the end of a road trip or long day, I want OUT of my car. I commiserate with the horse’s feelings here.
Horses are motivated by different things. Horses respond differently to things. One single training method doesn’t work for every single horse out there. That’s why successful trainers have a whole toolbox of approaches.
I’ve had two that wouldn’t get better with your approach: one mare who would fall over before bottoming out; she gave zero shits about the “reward” of rest. It didn’t motivate her in the least little bit and she was more than happy to go go go go go. The other is a gelding who just keeps working up, getting more and more upset in a situation he’s anxious about. He’d likely kill himself with what you suggest. You’d be dragging a dead horse out of that trailer if you kept putting him back on. Pulling him off to work him wouldn’t help. Neither one is a “timing” thing. It’s a how the horse is wired and what they need to learn thing.
Sounds like you’ve never run into a horse that doesn’t work with your training method. It’s frustrating when you do, especially the first time. But claiming that your one true way is a sure fire fix for every horse out there is really missing that they’re all a little, or a lot, different. One way doesn’t work for them all.
At the very core, horses really only care about a few basic things including survival (shelter, food, water, etc) and feeling safe. You don’t have to over-complicate it.
Yes, horses do respond differently and have different personalities, but the one consistent thing for any training method you choose to use is your timing of your release. And, doing your best to help the horse be in a “thinking” state of mind and not a reactive (fight or flight) state of mind. They won’t learn anything in that reactive state of mind. Some horses kick into that reactive mode quickly and often. Others don’t. When a horse is pawing in the trailer and throwing a fit, that’s reactive mode. They don’t feel safe and they are uncomfortable. In their mind, if they stay in that trailer, they might die. (seriously)
And if you never get that mare out of that reactive state of mind, you’re right; you’ll never get anywhere. It’s not always easy to pinpoint where the handler’s communication is not being effective for the horse, but if they are constantly frazzled and can’t settle, there’s a lot of other holes that need fixin’ first before you’d move on to tackling a trailer issue such as discussed.
My current main mare has NEVER been tired. Never. The mere shift of my weight in the saddle and she’s moving forward (like I asked). If I let her, she would also go, go, go, go, go. She’s that type. If you’d frustrate her (which I have fortunately only made that mistake one time, and it was fully 100% my mistake), she’ll go UP in the air.
Do I get it right all the time? Good heavens no. But if something is not going well, I’m looking at myself and trying to figure out what the heck I am doing wrong to cause what’s going on with my horse.
Let me ask you this: Let’s say you are on the ground and you ask your horse to move forward. At what point do you release the pressure on the lead rope?
Do you release the pressure on the lead rope when the horse has taken 2 steps forward?
Or do you release the pressure before the horse’s foot has even left the ground? (but they’ve begun shifting their weight forward in order to lift the foot to move forward.) THAT is the type of timing and release I am talking about.
Most people are way, way too late on their release.
And if the horse keeps getting worked up and more worked up and more worked up, then the handler is doing something wrong, because there’s that reactive state of mind I mentioned above. It’s not a black and white answer on where the “wrong” thing is happening, because there is no blanket answer when it comes to horses. But if it ain’t working, you have to take a step back and take a hard look at yourself and figure out what you are doing to continually frustrate the horse, when they aren’t finding the correct answer. Did they start to give you a correct answer but you didn’t release soon enough? Did you release too late? Either can frustrate the horse and/or not allow them to figure out what the right answer was. If they don’t understand, that’s where they start to have anxiety and pretty soon you’ve flipped back into that reactive mode.
So yes, it’s still a timing thing. It’s the handler’s job to figure out what they have to do in order to get the horse back into the thinking mode of their brain.
Maybe that day they just can’t mentally handle being around the trailer, and they’re having a really hard time flipping into a reactive state of mind. It happens. You recognize that so you go somewhere else in the yard to do some ground work for that day (away from the trailer) and you can still accomplish some good things, with your horse listening to you, relaxing, paying attention and in the THINKING state of mind. Perfect. You’ve just shown them how to calm down from a stressful situation. Might not have been what you wanted to accomplish for the day, but it is still something accomplish. So maybe tomorrow you try working by the trailer again, and since you took the previous day to teach the horse how to stay calm and pay attention to you, they don’t immediately get worked up and you can make a small amount of progress on the actual trailer problem.
It’s the “same method” but adjusted for the horse that day, in that situation. Like I’ve said repeatedly. You aren’t a robot standing there loading the horse on and off 100 times until they do exactly what you want. It doesn’t work that way.
Because it works. Might take a few months for some horses but there are no shortcuts. You stay consistent and steady.
I’m all about using treats to my advantage in the training process, but I also recognize that treats aren’t training. If you have a horse that is not motivated by food or treats and is not interested in them, it’s of no help in the situation.
Tools like pawing anklets have their place as well, but I’ve seen plenty of horses still tear things up and create some huge problems even with the anklets on, so they aren’t always a solution either and could potentially make things worse if a horse feels “trapped” by them and starts to panic worse (I’ve seen that too).
I agree the comfort of my horse comes #1. They’re the last thing on the trailer when we are headed out, and the first thing off when we arrive. They travel in SoftRides, magnetic bands, sheets, and fly masks, with oodles of soft bedding and hay in front of them. Yeah, pretty spoiled.
But… I have also put my time and miles into them to train them to load/unload with ease, and stand patiently and quiet in the trailer and be good travelers.
So that when I blow a tire on my trailer and have to fix it alongside the interstate with cars buzzing by, they stand quiet.
Or when I stop mid-route at my parents place to throw my mom’s tack in my trailer, get her horse loaded behind mine, and continue on our way, my horses stand quietly and wait.
Or if I get caught in road construction and we’re at a standstill on the road, my horses stand quietly.
Or something as routine as stopping to fill gas and I’ve got to go inside to pee … they stand quietly.
There’s countless scenarios where it’s really advantageous to have taught your horse how to deal and manage their stress and anxiety. Whether that’s with a trailer, or anything else. But you have to work through those training situations first to get to your end result.
good luck!