[snoopsincharge]

Originally Posted by Bella

I'm going to have to disagree with this statement. It has nothing to do with the surroundings.. its about respect and obedience. He had to work while in the trailer as much as outside. So rather, its not about making a place unpleasant, but rather, disobedience.

-Bella

WHERE did the horse have to "work" in the trailer? He didn't.
If it was about obedience alone, it would surfice to just do the "training" in the roundpen and then the horse should just follow him everywhere, right? So no, it's not about only obedience, it's about getting the horse to be obedient also when going in the trailer. That's a given. And what does he do to achieve this?
The horse was backed up as soon as it hesitated to follow, over and over. It only hesitated when it came to getting closer/further in the trailer. The only time it didn't have to back up was when it followed forward. This is clearly about annoying the horse into doing something you want him to do. And the horse clearly had some little obedience issues and was a little "looky" like many arabs. He certainly was not really afraid of the trailer. Read his body language.
It's clear, you want the horse to follow you. If it doesn't follow, it gets backed up. It's totally his choice in what direction of them two he's moving, but it has to move either way until it's in the trailer.... aka making the "not going in the trailer" more uncomfortable then the "being in the trailer". He says it himself in that video, if you care to listen.
Like I said, it's not neccessarily a bad method. This can work well, HOWEVER, in my experience this only works on horses that have obedience issues or are just a little "looky", just like this horse. It does not however do anything for deep rooted fear issues. And since neither of us knows this horse or has seen it's reactions to the trailer loading attempts, it's better to consider either possibility. And if the horse hasn't had any fear BEFORE this last trailering attempt, it sure has it now, after being unsuccessfully manhandled and flipping over and still never got made to get on. What prey animal wouldn't???
Deep rooted fear will always overcome the desire to be obedient. They are prey animals, not mindless robots, and often turn to attack if pushed into a corner. It's a basic survival instinct, we have it, animals have it and this is what I was warning about.
If the fear is too strong and you end up with defensive attacks like rearing, striking and bolting you might help the horse to realize what is obvious to us but not him, that he is indeed stronger then we are. And THAT is Not a good thing. The only way around this is to back of and aproach this from another angle. Remove the fear. It takes multiple pleassant experiences to overcome just one bad one, and what is more pleassant for a horse then associating the trailer with feeding? Making it a "Happy place"? Horses are born to eat, they are grazers. They are meant to take any chance they can get to take a bite of food. You working them it's just something they tolerate, really, not something they overly enjoy as much as they do eating. Not saying they "hate" it, but given the choice 99.9% of horses rather stand in a pasture and eat then having to carry our lazy ***** around. LOL
Loyalty and obedience will never overcome fear and the resulting survival instincts, it just won't.

[Nicker1]

Originally Posted by BamBam.

I sold my mare to a loving couple a few hours away. So they came to get her and she would not get in their two stall, witch was understandable because it was dark out, and small. So they came back the next day and we tried for SIX HOURS! We tried everything. Lounge line behind her, shaking grain, another horse, EVERYTHING! So the next day they came back for the last time. With a bigger horse trailer and everything. She still would not get in. So we had one of the men from down the road try and help, because we thought that he could and before we could stop him, he hit her with a lounge whip twice ans he went up and flipped over. She is pretty cut up, but okay. So we took care of that and had the vet give her a tranquilizer. She still will not get in. The people who were going to buy her, like her so much. I really want them to get her. It's like their is no hope. We did not ever hurt her or anything. Any advice?

I bought a 6 year old mare and they delivered her to me, she would not get in a trailer ether. I backed my trailer up to my round pen and made her eat all her hay and grain in the trailer for a week. Then I made her run in the round pen untill she went in the trailer, which was not an easy task. I would make her run 20 laps and walk her up to the trailer and tap her on the but with the whip, when she didnt go in after a muniute I made her run another 20 laps. After about 300 laps she got in the trailer. Then I made her get in the trailer every day while still at the round pen for about 4 more days. (Always puting a little grain in the manger of the trailer.) Then every day I would get her from the pasture and make her eat her grain in the trailer for two more weeks, takeing her for a 2 or 3 mile ride every couple of days. (Its very important that you never stop when you start that you never stop untill you win, never let them win or you are finished) Hope you have the time and patience for this. It will work.

[Ginger_Nell]

I haven't read through all of these pages so I don't know if you've been able to find something that works for you yet. But i had a horse just like this and he wouldn't load if his life depended on it, I had even asked advice from some people on here as to what to do and boy did we try all of them but to no avail. At one point we absolutely had to get him into the trailer to go down to the vet and had to pully him into the trailer, that was effective for getting him into it. After that we asked him to back out and used the pully system we had to get him back in and just repeated this cycle a few time and he fought less and less each time. It was not an instant thing It really took months to get him to a good point and to this day sometimes he still fights a little but we've gotten him to the point where we can actually walk him up to the trailer and 90% of the time he'll get in. If you absolulty need her to get into the trailer the pully system works pretty well- at least for us.