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Trailer Loading
with
John Mallon
Some of the most common handler errors I encounter, mistakes that are so common as to be almost universal. Something happened here last week that brought another to the forefront - arrogance. Let me just tell the story, then you can be the judge:
I had taken a friend's three year old colt in for training; he was green-broke", meaning that he was able to be saddled and mounted and ridden in one or two gears without much bucking. He had several issues that needed to be dealt with, one of which was refusing to load into a trailer, which we'll use for our example. Oh, by the way, please don't be put off because this is a horse story and not a "llama” story because it is the human story we'll be discussing here...
How many times have you heard me say that there are lots of ways of doing things? That there is usually more than one "right" way to accomplish something? That's if you think your way is the only way, that you will severely limit your effectiveness as a trainer/teacher? I think the following example illustrates this point well:
In teaching a horse to load into a trailer, it is generally accepted as fact that it is not very wise to enter the trailer, then ask an 1100 pound animal to jump in there with us, especially if it is a two horse, side-by- side rig Makes sense, right? So, what we do instead, is to (send the horse in on his own, in other words, we stand at the entrance to the trailer and give the horse a cue to step up and in by himself. It's really pretty simple, and something that a horse will learn in a fairly short time, so this is what I did, and, sure enough, within 30-35 minutes, this young horse was willingly and calmly stepping in and out of the trailer with a simple verbal cue ('step up'). Now, remember, this colt was afraid of trailers to begin with, and as with most aspects of prey animal learning, he needed to be calm, to feel safe, to trust me, before he would be willing to do something as frightening as climb into a noisy box. We accomplished this through consistency, by giving him the same cue (step up), waiting for the same response (moving forward), and rewarding (good boy) at the appropriate time (as soon as he tried). It worked, and the next day, when we brought him to the trailer again, he walked right in the first time we asked him to. Then we brought him to another trailer, a fully enclosed slant load rig, which was darker and, of course, new to him. He walked right in the first time. I was sure proud of this little guy, overcoming his fear and trying so hard to learn about easy loading, and when my friend called to say that someone was interested in buying the horse, I was looking forward to demonstrating how nicely he loaded. Pretty nice story so far, isn't it? Well, it's about to start going downhill from here...
The prospective buyer arrives at our place a few days later, pulling a little two-horse behind his pickup, ready to take the horse home with him if he likes him. I'll spare you all the details of the test drive and cut to the scene where the man asks How's he load? Great! says I, "he was having some trouble with it, but he's over it now; here, let me show you, and to his trailer we went. I opened the back doors of this rig, brought the colt up and asked him to step in, which he did just beautifully; a rig, remember, that he had never seen before. So far, so good, but then the man wanted to try it himself, so he took the lead rope, fed it through the front window of the trailer and proceeded to start pulling on the poor horse's head.
What do you suppose happened? Right! The horse stood there bracing against the pressure of the halter, not having a clue about what was happening. "Why is he refusing?", the man asked. He's not refusing, he just doesn't understand what is being asked of him...he's only been taught to go in with a verbal cue. Well, he should go in this way, too", he insisted, and kept pulling on the horse's head, accomplishing nothing but confusion for the horse and frustration for himself (and me..) Look, I suggested, why not just use what he knows for now, then, later on, you can teach him any way you'd like? (I've always loaded horses this way - this is how it's done, and so on, and 'round and 'round we went.
Am I overreacting here? Wouldn't it make more sense to do it the way the horse understands if and not insist that the horse come around to the man's way of doing things without a little help? Like maybe teaching the horse first?
Well, by the time the man left this willing little colt was now this stupid idiot', "you dumb ##!!**î, and a few other undeserved nicknames, and I spent some time apologizing to the horse for the human race before calling my friend and asking her not to sell to this person (she didn't..)
I see this kind of thing all the time; people expecting animals to do what the people know, rather than what the animal knows. Another quick horse story: A friend's daughter, who grew up riding English hunter/jumpers' was visiting shortly after I'd taken in a couple of mustangs to train. She wanted to come to the 60' round pen to watch me work. The mustang stallion was doing well, responding to verbal cues of walk, trot and "canterî, and she asked if she might give it a try, as he was pretty different from anything she'd ever worked with before. We traded places and she gave the traditional English command walk ON! and, of course, the horse just looked at her in confusion. "What's the matter with him?', she wanted to know. ìNothing; he just doesn't understand walk ON! so just use walk. That's ridiculous! Of course he understands "walk ON! - all horses do!"
People... go figure!
Happy Trails...
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