Trailer Loading Your Horse When All Traditional Methods Fail

You’ve swung the rope until your arm fell off and you’ve attended the clinics until your money ran out and your horse will still not load into the trailer. For these horses, you need to think outside the box.

First, get the trailer out of its traditional environment. Most horses associate trailer loading (and all of its accompanying nightmares) with the area where they are usually loaded. Do something radical so that the horse gets used to seeing it in a completely different light. Back it up to the barn aisle door. Park it next to the pasture gate.

Next, when trailer loading, many horses get disconnected from their feet. This is the horse who is calm but simply will not (cannot!) put his feet in the trailer. There is an easy way to reconnect a horse’s mind to his feet: Manually pick his foot up and put it in the trailer or tap it on the trailer floor, praising him well. Soon, his mind and feet will reconnect and he will load far easier.

Also, teach your horse untraditional ways of loading into the trailer, for once a horse learns to load untraditionally, traditional loading will come easier. Have your horse back or sidepass into the trailer. Or, set up a series of poles or cavaletti leading up to the trailer so the horse starts thinking down to his feet as he goes up to the trailer.

The Parellis usually have lots of inspirational trailer loading ideas.(Image taken from http://enews.parelli.com/2007/enews030207.html.)

Finally, trailer loading is all about

“Soul Surfer” Movie Shows Animals and Movies Don't Always Get Along

"Soul Sufer" is an inspiring true story about a surfer who was attacked by a shark, lost her arm, yet continued to follow her passion in surfing. (Image taken from http://restministries.com)

“Soul Surfer,” “a gem of a movie,”as Elia Gourgouris says, features an exciting shark attack scene, though some were dissatisfied with that scene and the shark's "Jaws-like" portrayal. However, that is to be expected—films and animals rarely get along. Particularly, films and horses.

First off, films are obsessed with The Neighing Horse. However, horses do not neigh when they are in a dead gallop battle charge, nor when they are lying pathetically in a stall on death’s doorstep, nor when they are desperately fighting off a pack of wolves. Really, now. They have other things to worry about. And most of all, horses do not neigh when they are being ripped in the mouths with a bit. That’s pain. Not neighing. Period.

Next, films truly have immensely creative tying systems. I perhaps can justify the slinging the reins around a hitching post in a Western, because, after all, the epically cool cowboy has better things to do than