I have a 10 yr old mare that I bought about 3 months ago. It is my understanding that she always had loading problems but that they could get her on eventually. When I bought her she had to make a 2-day trip to get to me. She went on ok the first day, but gave the shippers enormous trouble the 2nd day, although they eventually got it done. Now that I have her she initially flat out refused to load. Over the past 3 months I have gradually gotten her trust enough that she will now get on the trailer to get a bucket of grain. I have been very patient and pretty much allowed her to get on with no prodding from me. Just put the bucket in and hung out with her until her curiosity overcame her fear. So now we’ve been doing this about 2-3 times a week for 2 months. The problem is that there is no way I can close the trailer. Any movement or noise behind her causes her to come shooting out backwards. She will even self-load, but I cannot step behind her to do the butt bar or lift the ramp. Trailer is 7.5’ warmblood size and she is 15.2, so it is plenty big, plus I’ve moved the partition over, so she has lots of room. Former owner said she is also a problem on a stock trailer. But her problem was loading her…she had no trouble shutting her in once she was on. I can load her but can’t shut her in. I do think she was traumatized during her trip to my place. Any ideas on how I can deal with this?
Is it a slant? See if you can walk her in then turn her around to face the back and have her wait to step off. Next, if she will respect it, try tying her short enough she can’t fly back. If she will fight, use a blocker ring type device to slow her down a bit on her way back and eventually be able to stop her before she gets all the way out. If it’s straight load or you can’t turn her around due to tack in the back, skip turning her around and try tying or blocker ring.
I had one mare that did this. She would load fine but fly out backwards faster than any horse I have ever seen. She had been doing that for some years when I got her so did take a while to get her over it. She would literally stand in the trailer and get sweaty on a cool day so no telling what happened before I got her. It took time but she eventually could be safely loaded and unloaded.
Break it down even further: desensitize her to the sound/motions of the trailer ramp closing while she is outside happily munching on some grass or hay. Repeatedly till the sound/action is not a trigger. Do it with her standing on all sides of the trailer.
Eventually, position her in such a way (outside the trailer) so she can’t see it, and when it sounds like it’s coming from behind her.
Eventually, get her inside (don’t lock her in), and just rattle a few bars, etc. Quietly at first, then progressively louder. Just go super slow.
Eventually, you might want to use a little pharmacology - maybe some dorm gel to take the edge off - for big things like the first time you close her in, or the first time you drive off.
Can you control the steps she takes in, and the steps out? Perhaps that would be a good exercise to try, and you can do it anywhere (e.g., a roundpen) - ask for one step at a time forward, then one step at a time backward. Make sure you are controlling each step. Then, ask for one step at a time into the trailer, then one step at a time out. Practice just on the ramp - two steps onto the ramp, two steps back down. Just do what you can control, and praise profusely at each step.
Just remember baby steps. And if she’s still overwhelmed, babier steps.
Overall, it sounds like you have a good approach - slow and steady.
We had a horse that would fly backwards like he was shot out of a cannon. My husband’s solution was to lead him in and have an assistant (me) close the door. He would back up and boom! hit the door. Only took a couple of times and he quit and would quietly back out. Door was none the worse for wear. We didn’t have a ramp but was a step up slant.
I think you are on the right path. I’ve had horses that did this and the best thing I found was to just load and unload a LOT. She is backing out quickly because of fear. The more she backs out and just gets back on (and doesn’t get punished for it) the better she will get. The worst ones (IME) were the ones that don’t care about food, so at least she likes a food treat. But for reals. I’d load her and back her off as many times a day as you can and then work towards closing the door and opening again and backing off. She needs to not associate the trailer/door closing/etc with fear and/or pain.
Does she hurry out when you’ve had her in there and not tried to close her in? Or can you control her feet one step at a time, forward, back, forward again, etc.?
If she can’t back out or part way out under control or being able to stop, then fix that first before you go back to trying to have her closed in.
I wouldn’t start by trying to tie her, but if you can get a helper to have some noise etc. behind and then to try to close things while you are still at her head, do that first. You can use a blocker ring or have a longe line or something where you try to leave her head without losing all control, but I have a feeling this is not going to help with the panic part just yet. I could probably do that with my one gelding that I’m trying to teach to be better with one person loading but he backs out because he’s just like hey whatcha doing back there, got any cookies? I’d better follow you just in case there are cookies somewhere.
I had one that did this. She can be a real problem child. However she is extremely food oriented. So when I first started loading her I would lead her on, let her eat her food in there and then quickly unload her before SHE decided she wanted out. Then I would load her back in and let her eat more. I made sure I decided when she came out - not her.
She still wanted to back out when I came around to put the butt bar up. So we worked on self loading next. I made her self load a lot without putting up the butt bar until she was comfortable in there. I also would go up front and make her back out when she still had food in the trailer. It took a while but she pretty much is fine now although we have refresher courses from time to time. Patience is key. I wouldn’t sedate. i think that messes up their thought patterns and sometimes they are worse sedated. I know my problem child was a real pain after she had her teeth floated and she was still groggy when I loaded her to go home. She wasn’t self loading and she didn’t care what you did to her.
And sometimes nothing works when they are this scared…
I don’t want to sound defeatist, but my daughter’s mare fell in a straight load, trashed the interior and cut herself up before we managed to pull over, get her up and unloaded. We worked with her for months, and used an excellent trainer to help us with no success. He finally suggested we try a slant load, and she was fine! She just could not tolerate the ramp coming up behind he- she was big and scary when she panicced!
This. I’m going to guess this mare flies backwards no matter what, whether you ask or she decides to get off.
Load and unload. Load and unload. Load and unload. Each foot, you need to have control over. At any point in the process if she feels pressure on her poll she needs to know that means forward. If she flies back, I’d put quite a bit of pressure on her until she gets back on, and then relax. The trailer is the good place to be. Anywhere else sucks.
I don’t doubt that some horses have fear about this. Other horses have learned how to do this and it’s more of a “no” than it is fear. You know your horse, you decide which one it is. But a horse that won’t load or is liable to flying backwards is seriously dangerous, so do your homework.
Thanks for all the suggestions! At this point, I do not have control of each footstep, especially when she decides to go back. Once she is started back, there is no stopping her. Having a helper behind to shut the door doesn’t work because the helper can’t even get near the back door before she starts flying back. It is difficult for me to tell her to back up before she’s ready because she will go on, grab a couple bites, the fly back. The back on, couple more bites, fly back. This is not enough time for me to make the decision for her. Can’t use a buddy because she is new to the farm and is still the outcast horse. And my best trailer loader absolutely hates her! Tried sedation once and just got a horse who wouldn’t move at all! smile: I’ve been working on it for 2 months now. Initially I was encouraged when she started going on, but now we are at a plateau where there has been no further improvement in the last month. I’m thinking I may have to resort to making life outside the trailer a little miserable. I did not want to go that route, but am at my wit’s end!
I had a similar horse back when I was in vet school.
I used to joke that I was the only one who read all the surgery text assignments because I’d sit in the front of the trailer holding a longe line and waiting for the horse to get on.
I was feeding him dinner on the trailer.
He was smart enough that after awhile, even though he’d get on, he’d grab a mouthful and back off fast.
So I upped the ante a little and set a timer.
He had 20 minutes to eat.
If he wanted to spend half of it running backwards he wasn’t going to get all his dinner.
He was food motivated enough to figure that out relatively quickly, and began to let me put up the ramp while he ate.
Of course, then we moved on to the next problem–he would reliably load to go somewhere, but often did not want to load to go home.
sort of “I already did that today.”
I once hacked home from a hunter pace…
I would work on the feet without putting her all the way on, then. One step up the ramp, one step off. Two steps on, two steps off. Controlled. Two steps on, one step back. Then more of her on but not IN the trailer yet, then a little bit back. Do that until you can get only a little bit back. Try to just hang out halfway on sometimes and see if she can stand still.
You can also work on this ask to some extent without the trailer. Do you have ground poles or something like that anywhere? Can you ask her to walk over the poles? Can she walk between poles (e.g. a chute or between a pole and a fence)? Can she go partway over or partway through and stop before continuing? Can she go partway and then back up in a controlled manner? Can you send her over/through in a controlled manner where she is being sent past you as if you’re asking to self load?
It seems like horses have memories like elephants when it comes to trailer trauma, so I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think you have actually made some good progress in 2 months. But there are some gaps. Does she have a tendency to hit her head when she goes back? If so, I’d 100% put one of those helmet things on her. I have one that did/will do that, and anytime he’d even graze his head, he’d panic. He’d really whacked it in the past, evidenced by some lack of hair when he arrived to me! I can’t hold pressure on the halter if he’s deciding he’s going back (makes the head come up more), and putting the helmet on helped me get him through the process because if he did have a little bump, it wasn’t SO bad and scary.
I am VERY impressed with the post from Feathered_Feet. I second and third and fourth those suggestions.
Remove the divider. Set the trailer up as a box stall. Load the horse, and turn her around so she is looking out. Stop her from walking back down the ramp. Have a helper do up the back of the trailer, and let you out the front escape door. Leave the horse loose in the trailer to find her favoured method of travel.
IMO, panic in a trailer is a claustrophobia issue for horses. Trapped, and can’t MOVE. Panic ensues. If they are not trapped in a stall, can move around in a box stall configuration, many horses are much happier, both to load and to travel.
Good luck!
@horsephotolady, you could have been describing one of my horses. I could get him to load, but he absolutely would not stay put. He would stand quietly with me in the trailer, but when I tried to leave, he was out of there.
One thing that really helped my guy was teaching him to self load, turn around, and take a step back. Facing backwards seemed to help him feel less trapped and more confident. I used treats to teach him. I would either reach in and give them by hand or sprinkle a few on the floor. At first he was rewarded just for getting on; then for getting on and turning around; then for getting on, turning around and standing still for a few seconds; then for getting on and turning around and stepping back. In other words, tiny baby steps.
One other thing that helped with my horse was working away from the trailer on controlling his feet. The problem in the trailer was that he was moving before I told him to, so I worked on parking him in various places and making him wait while I walked away. I put him in places that might make him a little claustrophobic, such as our garage. I taught him to put his front feet on a tree stump and stand there while I walked away and came back.
When I practice loading my horse, I take the lead rope off after he loads and let him decide whether to stay or go. Once he was comfortable standing in the trailer without restraint, I started swinging the door back and forth. When he was comfortable with that, I progressed to shutting the door. I’ve been working with him over a year now, but as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. The big payoff came last week when I was practicing loading the horses. I was standing a couple hundred feet away from the trailer with my other horse. The trailer door was open, and my “bad” loader walked over all by himself, got on, turned around, backed up, and stood there. That was a HUGE moment, and he got huge rewards for that.
Three months really isn’t very long for a horse that’s new and still settling in. You’re doing everything right, so just be patient, break everything down into the tiniest steps, and have confidence. You’ll get there.
I think this is a really good point. OP, it sounds like you’re doing a tremendous job and making great progress. You’re working on it regularly, making it part of the routine. Keep up the good work and don’t get discouraged. Sometimes it seems like they plateau, or even regress. That’s ok, and it’s totally normal. Sometimes you just need to keep gently nudging, other times it’s good to look for outside ideas (like you’re doing here).
If I were you, I’d keep chugging along, as it sounds like you’re on the right track.
Google John Lyons trailer loading. This method has worked marvelously for a number of horses of mine. Includes desensitization to the trailer sounds.
Thank you for the encouragement and to just keep plugging along. I do have very good control of her feet outside of the trailer. So now I need to work on better control on the trailer. I was feeling like 2 months was a long time to still be working on this, but maybe not…sigh. Thanks for helping me see that!
I really like the teaching to self-load idea, something I should learn myself. It is dangerous to any ground person to have a horse flying backwards off a trailer-especially if you don’t have the ramp all the way secured l before they start going backwards. Great suggestions!
Agree with going back to basics to fix the fundamental holes in her groundwork - controlling each foot, giving to pressure, and understanding that “whoa” means “do not move until told otherwise”. Does she also sit back when tied?
I absolutely would not under any circumstances allow a horse like this to turn around in the trailer. There’s just not enough space in all but the largest semi-truck type trailers to safely allow one that is prone to bolting over the top of a human to try this. Only my very young babies (because space isn’t an issue with them) or VERY broke horses are allowed to turn around inside a trailer. If you think one flying out backwards is bad, wait until you have one spin around, slam you into the trailer wall, and gallop out…
