Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Just as an update, I was making SOME progress working with her on my own, and managed to take her off property and reload her by myself afterwards (though it took about 45 minutes total, it was only 15 minutes after my friends left).  Meanwhile, a woman contacted me in response to an ad I had placed, asking for help, prior to my starting to work with her.  She sounded promising, so I decided to give her a try, as she said she typically only had horses for a few days before returning them to their owners, loading beautifully.  I was a little tentative (as everyone says, it just takes a lot of time and practice and experience), but had hope.  I spent Saturday up there learning her techniques and working with my horse, and then came up Sunday for one more session, and to bring her back.  She is loading like a DREAM into the front stall, stands quietly while I close the divider, stands quietly while I open the divider, and backs off quietly.  When I back her off, I can stop her at any point, before she's started to step down, and even when she's halfway off.  When she's halfway off, I can stop her, and ask her to step back into the trailer.  Back and forth, she's quiet and responsive.  Every once in a while, she gets worried, and starts back, but she is responsive when I correct her.  She needs a little more experience with the back stall, as she's just NOT convinced she can fit ;-) but she WILL load into it, and with much less effort than before, and no freaking out, just unsure.  This woman also completely fixed her worming difficulties.  I have had other trainers work with her, and progress doesn't show once you stick in the icky stuff (as opposed to the yummy "training" stuff).  She let me worm her (we were doing a little at a time to be able to practice with the icky stuff more often) with NO fight.  I gave her some, and then she gave NO fight again when I went to give her some more.  She is the same horse I've always loved, but now the two "issues" that I had difficulty with are almost entirely solved (only say almost, because of the back stall).  I am beyond thrilled, and now can only hope that I am able to maintain all of this wonderful training =)

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"Don't breed or buy while shelter animals die"