Above is a picture of Bogey's sire, Tee Totalin Fred.
I forgot that I have not finished up the posts on Bogey's old trailering issues. That's right I said OLD! :D
Bogey had issues going into the trailer when I first bought him. The trainer that hauled him from Indiana to Minnesota said that she had to bribe him with grain to get him into her 4 horse goose-neck slant load trailer. When I went to the trainers house twenty minutes away - he would not load into our former 2 horse straight load trailer. Mind you, this trailer was not your average 2 horse. It was a very tall trailer, white and very roomy.
We tried lunging him around, pulling him, pushing him and bribing him. He would not go. Since it was December and very cold and slightly icy and I did not want a hurt horse, we quit for the day and the trainer said she would haul him over in her slant load goose-neck. He went in, with bribery.
I do not like using bribery, and expect my horses to load easily and practically by themselves. Point and shoot. This was something we would definitely have to work on. Bogey was then at the boarding stable for the winter and we did not address this issue of loading until spring time, when I took him to my house. When I would try to load Bogey, it would become a battle with him and he would back quickly away and lunge the rope out of my hands - he was flat out scared to go into the trailer at first, but then it became a respect issue and a stubborn issue. Bogey is extremely stubborn and if he does not want to do it - he won't without making a fuss. This has been interesting to deal with to say the least, but with his stubbornness comes the added bonus of when he gets something, he's stubborn about retaining his knowledge, he'll remember it. But the trailering issue was almost becoming dangerous, he would rear and pull back - not cool and not fun to deal with, when you just bought a new horse and don't even know what to think of him.
We also bought a new trailer, it was time for an upgrade anyways, a 3 horse slant that can be converted to a stock trailer and used that instead. A dear friend of my came over and helped me load him. She is wonderful with horses and can break things down for them to grasp. Also, she does a lot of Clinton Anderson techniques, and whatever one says or feels about Clinton - he sure can get a horse loaded in a trailer. I do like his methods and they are a common sense approach.
Stacy, my friend, lunged him near the trailer and circled and made him work away from the trailer but then let him rest near the trailer. The rest became closer and closer and finally he was in the trailer. Bogey now can load, no more issues. All summer we were loading and traveling to all sorts of places. All I would do is point him at the trailer and throw the lead over his back - it was that simple. The problem that I had was getting over that initial fight.
Mind you, I did have to repeat Stacy's methods and do the lunging for myself and would have to refresh it ever now and then, but it never became the problem that it was previously. Many thanks to Stacy, for getting that initial stubbornness out.
No comments:
Post a Comment