My new horse keeps peeing in the trailer. One evening a week I go ride with friends at a local arena and he pees in the trailer right after loading. I hate having urine the trailer so I usually do a complete cleaning after each trip which takes a lot of time.
I have no idea how to change this behavior. Any comments or suggestions?
Can you put a bucket of shavings under him and have him pee in that? It would have to be just the right size to fit and not splatter. Then you could dump the bucket.
My gelding will pee after a long ride. I try to leave him some quiet time outside of the trailer before I load him up so that he won’t pee on the trailer. I keep my trailer bedded, deeper in the middle, because he does pee on the trailer. I then scoop out the wet spot when I get home and leave it open to air dry. I rearrange the shavings before the next trip. I do a major clean out every few months.
I have no idea how to change this behavior
Deal with it. It’s better than the horse holding it in. Horses pee.
I have one too -pees in the trailer, pees in the crossties. Lives out full time and he pees in the 20 minutes he’s in the barn.
I keep a bag of pelleted bedding (40 lbs, 7 bucks from Southern States) in the dressing room and bed the area under his midsection at least an inch thick. The bedding is very absorbent and soaks up the pee, preventing it from running all over (you discover quickly that almost every place you park the trailer is not quite level…). Then I scoop just the wet bedding, sweep the untouched bedding out of the way, hose the area and let dry. Works great!
My gelding often pees in the trailer too. I just keep shavings piled against the butt wall to get most of it and clean the trailer after each use. Every so often I pull the mats and wash everything down good. I don’t pull and wash down every time after he pees, way too labor intensive for sure.
What if you stand with your horse in front of the open trailer door for a few minutes BEFORE you load? Often times the horse will then do their business outside.
My aunt’s horse I have been borrowing ALWAYS poops in the trailer once he’s loaded. Either I let him stand outside (like I described above) and he’ll go outside, or if I don’t have time when I’ll just load him and have the pooper-scooper handy.
Horses pee and poop. Really not too much you can do about it.
Be grateful he will go so he is not damaging his kidneys! A horse who NEEDS to go but won’t, turns into a problem fast. This ‘trailer training’ is actually an asset you can use to have him go before a lesson, at a show before competing, so horse is not distracted by his need to go. When horse needs to go he is not giving you his full attention, not performing at his best.
LOTS of horses won’t go as often as they need to at shows, under saddle, so you can have ‘issues’ where horse is inattentive, unresponsive to signals. Get him to go, everything goes back to normal!
DD’s old horse was both stall and trailer trained to go, so she would put inside either place, every two hours at a show or competition. Give him a couple minutes and he would go. He came back out ready to ride, no distraction issues in listening. He didn’t like being ‘venerable’ to other unknown horses in that stretched position. Previous life as a herd stallion made him a different kind of thinker, but not hard to live with.
Sure made him easy to use, emptied him before use for excellent performance!
Maybe the bucket of sawdust would work well, sure worth trying to save trailer cleanup time. Other wise I would just thank the Lord he is not one who WON’T go, to cost you Vet money. Friend had one like that. He gradually got worse, blew a couple 2 day show fees to take him home after NOT going for 20 hours and more!! He finally would only go at home. She could only take him to short day outings nearby, until she gave up hauling him at all. That not-going stuff will ruin you fun!
If this is his only unlikable trick, you have a really easy time of it with him! I would love a horse with this habit, since bedding and mats get removed after each haul anyway to save the wood floor. I want mine to go anytime they think they need to. Better they go than suffer from holding it in too long. Or one not listening as needed, by being distracted during their work with a strong need to pee. Cleaning the trailer after a show with DD’s old horse, was just part of “going to a show” clean up and put things away procedures. We had heavy bedding to prevent splashes, he liked deep bedding for that.
It does not seem like a behavior that one would want to fix. You want your horse to urinate when it needs to.
Bed your trailer to absorb the urine and be happy your horse is comfortable enough in the trailer to pee there.
This is right up there with “how can I keep my horse from soaking his hay?”. Don’t. Put some shavings in there, scoop up the wet shavings after you unload, it takes 2 minutes.
“how can I keep my horse from soaking his hay?”. Don’t.
:lol: I have a dunker and I love it because I know that he’s getting additional water by doing so! Makes a mess for me, but I feel good knowing that he’s getting a good amount of water!
I use lots of bedding. It keeps pee from spraying my ankles - oh wait- you meant the horse. 
Does he go on the trailer straight from the pasture, or does he have a few minutes in a stall first. If he is coming straight to the trailer from pasture, if you can add a few minutes of stall time, then he might go there instead of on the trailer.
Some clarification:
Yes, I am happy that he goes instead of holding it except that the trip only lasts 20 minutes so holding it would probably be okay (he, of course, does not know it is a short trip). He has not done this on longer trips when we leave in the morning.
We have been going on the evening ride off and on for a while but he just started the peeing thing. It is just weird that he suddenly started doing this.
He in his stall when I get home and has been all day (he is out at night).
Thanks for the comments.
My mare often pees right after she is loaded as well. If my friend goes with me, I load her mare first and then my mare. My mare will be standing tied to the trailer for at least 5-10 minutes, but will pee before I can even get the ramp up. Most of it runs out the back. I use some shavings in the trailer to sop it up.
[QUOTE=Bopper;8261844]
Some clarification:
Yes, I am happy that he goes instead of holding it except that the trip only lasts 20 minutes so holding it would probably be okay (he, of course, does not know it is a short trip). He has not done this on longer trips when we leave in the morning.
We have been going on the evening ride off and on for a while but he just started the peeing thing. It is just weird that he suddenly started doing this.
He in his stall when I get home and has been all day (he is out at night).
Thanks for the comments.[/QUOTE]
Maybe he doesn’t like peeing in his stall since he’s in it all day? Could you try turning him out for a little bit before loading him up to see if he instead pees outside before loading?
Teach him to pee on command. (Often done with horses at the track.) Then you can just cue him to go right before he gets on the trailer.
I knew of a horse who would ONLY pee on the trailer if he was away at a horse show. If he started acting up in a class, they would take him back to the trailer, dismount and load him in. He would pee, and then go out an win the rest of his classes.
Do you bed your trailer? They pee in bedding to avoid the splash of peeing on hard ground. Agree teach him to pee on cue in a bucket -with a scoop of shavings in it, of course, for Mr. Prince[ss] and the Pee :winkgrin:.
I will second the earlier post re pelleted bedding. It will absorb anything!
Having had a mare who pooped mineral oil on the way home from colic surgery, I can vouch for absorbency, lol.
Thank your lucky stars if you ever get drug tested with this horse :lol:
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