Re: loading & keeping straight

[Linda Flemmer <bluewolfranch@yahoo.com>]

Terry,

I had a horse who would do this when we first started.
 It was a royal PAIN!

I wanted to keep his head lined up with the opening
and I wanted to be in back to guide his rump -
impossible to do by myself, I thought.  I learned to
run a lounge line thru the front of the trailer to the
horse's head.  I would stand next to the horse and
hold the tail end of the lounge line.  

I would keep only enough tension on the line to keep
the horse's head straight/his attention on loading
forward.  Any resistance or pulling back meant I had
too much tension there.  I would be by his rear to
lightly tap him if he swung out of alignment.  Him
being a huge sucker and me only 5' 4" 1/2 I tended to
use a driving whip as an arm extender.  I would use
the but end of the whip to tap him to straighten him
out.  He wasn't a bad loader, just stubborn about
getting started like it was all part of the routine.

This also works with Angie's but rope, too.  I'd have
two lines - one for the head & one to work the butt
rope.  Just NEVER make it a fight.

You said your horse gets right in when his
"guidelines" are picked up.  Obviously he KNOWS how to
load when he gets the right cue.  You jut need to
teach him that there is another cue, too.

That horse I had eventually learned to self load - it
just took lots of repetition.  

Our newest horse had NEVER been in a slant load in his
life when we went to pick him up.  We had quite a
crowd come to watch since "he'll never get in one of
those".  He was confused because he couldn't load
straight in like he was used to.  We used the lounge
line to help direct his head & he loaded in less than
10 minutes.

Linda Flemmer
Blue Wolf Ranch
Bruceton Mils, WV

--- Terry Barrall and Felix Rodriguez 
> 
> What do people suggest for a horse that won't line
> up straight because he
> doesn't want to load? 

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