How I Trailer Load

People frequently ask me how I teach horses to trailer load. That's a loaded question. (Get it? Haha.) I do recommend that anyone with a problematic trailer loader hires a professional. Trailer loading is hard to teach and feel is very important for the process. When done improperly, it can be dangerous and can teach the horse a slew of bad habits that can take a lifetime to undo. With that disclaimer aside, I am happy to explain my method.

The first thing you have to understand if you are going to tackle this with a horse is that horses learn from the release of pressure. Above all else, horses want us to leave them alone. This is why our aids work so well. You kick to make a horse move forward. When the horse moves forward, you stop kicking. You pull the reins to make a horse stop. When the horse stops, you release the reins. The idea with pressure-release training is that you can gradually decrease the amount of pressure it takes to get the horse to produce the desired result. For example, you go from kicking your horse and clucking to simply squeezing your legs or simply clucking. Same thing with the whoa. You start by pulling back on the reins, leaning back, and saying 'whoa'. Eventually you can just squeeze your hands a little bit and the horse stops. After that you can stop the horse just by shifting your weight or saying 'whoa'.

The key to all of this is releasing at the correct moment. The second the horse does the right thing, the release must be immediate. If you wait too long, you've missed your chance and the horse hasn't learned anything. This is how horses get hard mouths or dead sides. People use too much pressure for too long and the horse learns to ignore anything less than that. The point at which you release is the point at which the horse learns the cue. That sort of thing takes feel and practice and is why I make the big bucks doing this (and why simply reading this entry and watching this video probably won't be the insta-fix some people are hoping for).

The next thing you have to consider with trailer loading is that the horse isn't going to understand what the trailer is or why he has to go in it. The horse doesn't think, "I like to trail ride. If I get in this box, we'll get to go trail riding. Mom is pulling on my head so she must want me to go in the box." All of that is way too abstract for a horse's brain. I like to make things much, much simpler than that. When I trailer load a horse, I'm not thinking 'get in the trailer'. I'm thinking 'step forward'. 'Forward' is a much simpler concept for a horse to get than 'get in the box and go somewhere'.

The final thing about my method is that I like to teach all horses to not just load, but to self load. Sure, it's an impressive trick to pull out of your sleeve, and it's great for impressing people at shows. It's also the lazy man's way out because it means less work and less walking for the human. There's the fact that it's safer, too. You don't end up crammed between a horse and a divider or a horse and a chest bar or, heaven forbid, a horse and another horse. But none of that is why I teach them all to self load. The reason I teach them to self load is because it gives the owner a back up plan. If your horse normally self loads and there's a glitch and he doesn't want to go in by himself, you can back it down a notch and lead him in like a normal horse. If your horse just loads like a normal horse because that's 'good enough' and there's a glitch, what other options do you have???

To recap: this means I need a forward cue that the horse understands and respects and it has to be a cue that I can give the horse while either standing in front of him or standing next to him. Pulling on the horse's head is not very effective. You are never going to out-pull a thousand pound animal. You are also not going to pull a horse forward while standing next to him.

As with everything else, I like to make the right answer easy and the wrong answer annoying. I don't ever try to be scary or forceful or painful. Just annoying.

So what is an annoying forward cue that I can give the horse regardless of where I'm standing? It's so simple that many of my clients facepalm over not having thought of it themselves. I simply tap the horse on the shoulder with a dressage whip until he does the right thing and moves forward. I start this cue by directing the horse's head forward with the halter and lead rope while tapping him on the shoulder. When he moves forward, I immediately stop tapping. I start by teaching this cue nowhere near the trailer so I'm not overwhelming the horse with too much stimulation. If you have a horse who is truly wigged out by trailers, I'd start by doing it somewhere out of sight of the trailer. If your horse is just stubborn or green to trailers, but not fearful, you can do it just behind the trailer.

After a bit, the cue turns into me tapping the horse on the shoulder without pulling on his head at all. The idea is that he moves forward for the cue, not because I'm pulling him. Once that's established, we do it with me standing on the ramp (or in the case of a step up, in the trailer).

There is a process to fading out the whip part of the equation. Every time I apply the cue, I start simply by clucking. When the horse doesn't move forward, I point the whip at his shoulder. When he still doesn't move forward, I tap him lightly. The pressure of the tap increases until the horse gives me some indication that the whip is annoying him. Some horses are very sensitive and just a tickle will do. Other horses, like the one in the video below, need a little more pressure.

As soon as the horse moves forward, I release all pressure. This means no tapping, no pointing the whip, and NO CLUCKING. People are tempted to keep tapping the horse as he moves forward, thinking it'll keep the momentum up and sort of rocket the horse the rest of the way into the trailer. All that does is desensitize the horse to the tapping or the clucking or the waving.

Additionally, the greater the effort on the horse's part, the longer I allow them to 'reset'. So if a horse stops moving backwards, I'll pause for a second, but if the horse takes three giant steps up the ramp, I'll leave him alone for a while longer.

From there, it's a process of  rinse and repeat. So long as the horse is giving the wrong answer (backing up, turning sideways, rearing, kicking out, whatever) I keep tapping with steady, annoying pressure. I don't escalate. I don't get mad. I don't try to pull the horse forward. I wait until he runs out of options and accidentally does the right thing... straightens out, sniffs the trailer, shifts his weight forward, or takes a step. So long as the horse is making an effort, I leave him alone. The whole process is low work for me and low stress for the horse.

I let it take as long as it needs to take. The horse can back out of that trailer as many times as he needs to in order to get comfortable. The worst mistake you can make is to slam that ramp closed the second the horse is all the way in and ship him away. That screams, "HAHA! Gotcha! It's a TRAP!!!" and horses really don't like that. If you take the time to make sure the horse is happy in the trailer the first time, he's much more likely to get back in without a fuss after that. I'd rather spend three hours playing the in and out game to have the horse take less than five minutes to load after that, then spend ten minutes the first time and create weeks, months, or years of issues after that.

Generally speaking, the horses who haven't been traumatized get it pretty quickly. They put one foot on, then back off, then put two feet on, then back off, then put three feet on, then back off, then get halfway in, then back off, then get in, then get off, then get in and stay there.

I do believe in using cookies for food motivated horses, but ONLY as a reward, not a bribe. The degree of reward depends on the horse. The constant factor is that the horse has to do more than he has on previous efforts to get the treat. So if he puts a foot on for the first time, he can have a cookie, sure, but the next time he doesn't get a cookie until he puts two feet on, etc. With most horses, I provide a food reward when they're all the way in the trailer.

Once the horse is comfortable loading by following me into the trailer without the use of the whip, I re-do the entire process while standing next to the horse and sending him forward. Again, it's a rinse and repeat process until the horse gets on board by himself. The more you repeat this with consistency, the less cue you need. Eventually, all you have to do is point the horse at the trailer and cluck. Some of my trailer loading clients now have horses who will literally trot onto a trailer if you line them up straight and send them forward.

But enough rambling. Let's have a demonstration. This is a video that Tor took of me working with Cola last weekend. I want to emphasize that Cola was not a problem loader. He is simply green to trailers. This was our first session and the video is taken at pretty much real time. Tor stopped the camera periodically to make smaller clips, so we're missing a few seconds here or there, but the whole process took about ten minutes. The video is not perfect. The ramp on the trailer is old and slippery and there are a few times when Cola loses his grip. My advice would be to get the ramp re-done. Herbie also makes a very naughty appearance at the beginning of the video. She is trying to help, and we stop working with the horse long enough to leash her.


So there you have it. My trailer loading method. And for those of you who haven't seen it, here's a video of a horse who had a few sessions with me, and his 16 year old owner who I coached on my method.