Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I have done all that's described before, but after all that you are still working with a horse in resistence which makes it still dangerous fro everyone including the horse.  To me, the better solution is to get the help of a competent horse trainer to work with you and your horse (not just the horse) in resolving trailer loading issues.  I did this for my mare who developed a total fear of getting into a trailer.  It took one session with a COMPETENT trainer and I am now able to load her within a minute. I can't duplicate how she got my mare to load quietly, but she had been Parelli trained but uses a few other "non-Parelli techniques" and she performs these techniques with incredible timing and subtlety. She then worked with me after she worked out the bugs to make sure that I could do it myself.  I'm sure that I was lucky that it took only one session, but to me it would be worth the extra time and money to cure these issues. My mare still hesitates sometimes, but she does go in without a fight now compared to the hours of frustration, broken snaps and leadropes, and amused co-boarders giving you all sorts of bad advice.  Not to mention being stuck at the park with a horse not wanting to load or having total drama while loading. 

 

Conversely, I have a horse that walks willingly into the trailer when I lead him in, but it took me FOREVER to get him to be "sent" in to the trailer the "proper Parelli way" during a clinic.  This horse used to panic and bolt out of the trailer while unloading also (never while loading).  Having more training tools like people have described in previous posts, he is calm and not panicked while loading or unloading.

 

I know that things can still happen at anytime, but half the time I'm hauling my horse by myself, loading and unloading by myself.  It really helps to have horses that don't have loading and unloading issues.  I am not letting fear of trailer loading and unloading preventing me from hooking up my rig and meeting my buds at the trail head.

 

For those of you who don't know where I stand on Parelli and are wondering:  There's a lot of good stuff there if you can get past the commercialism and the idolatry.  I joined a Parelli group because I had a horse that had "issues" and I needed to get him in the arena with a lot of other horses with a little bit of mayhem in a safe way.  It's given me some great tools and insights to add to my knowledge base.  No one will accuse me of being "pure Parelli" and it drives me nuts when Parelli people tell me that "Linda says to do this, Pat says to do that" when giving advice because it's sometimes not their first hand experience, but I'm willing to ignore a lot of that to be able to work with my horse in that playground.  And it's working.  I just crack up when they tell me that I can't come to their playdays without "regulation Parelli" rope halters!

 

K.