Trailer Loading Tales: Part Two (I'm Not Abusive Enough)

First of all, thank you all so much for the comments yesterday! I'm glad I shared my turmoil. The outpouring of support and suggestions has been both useful and humbling.

Back to the trailer loading chronicles...

If you thought Beth was bad (and you did!) wait til you hear this next one. Beth may have been spoiling her horse with no chance of getting anywhere with him, but at least she wasn't beating him.

That brings me to part two of this series, and thankfully, the only other time I've had this sort of drama with trailer loading. For the most parts, trailer loading is my easy money. It's something people can't fix on their own and gladly pay someone else to fix for them. Ironically, this trailer loading happened a mere two months after I was done with Beth. (Maybe there was something in the air in the last quarter of 2015. Who knows?)



It started with a call from Booger's owner, who let me know she had a friend locally who needed help with a difficult-to-load horse. Now, I love Booger's owner, but I am always a little wary of people she recommends to me, and vice versa. She asked if I would contact her friend "Debbie". I replied that she could pass my information to Debbie, and Debbie could call me if she wanted to. Again, I am not in the habit of chasing people down and soliciting them for business.

About a week later, I got in my car after a lesson and found a missed call from a local number I didn't know. There was an accompanying voice mail, and I listened to it. It was Debbie, and she already sounded annoyed that I hadn't answered her call immediately. (Show of hands... how many of you are able to answer your cell phone during business hours? It's really not any different for horse training. I am on the clock, and if I'm with a client or on the road, I won't answer. The good news is that I am more able to return phone calls in a timely fashion.)

Less than an hour later, I received a series of long, ranting text messages. At the time, I didn't have a smart phone, so they came through as a seemingly never-ending stream. Holy cow!

I don't have the messages saved, which is too bad.

Basically, it was along the lines of, "Booger's owner gave me your contact info. I need your help. Please call me back. Why aren't you calling me back? I have a horse who needs loading. If you don't call me back I'll have to find someone else."

Keep in mind, this was someone I had never met. At that point, I was pretty much thinking, "You sound like a loon. Feel free to call other people. Good gravy."

THEN I got a call from Booger's owner (which I did answer). "Are you going to call Debbie? She says she tried to reach you and hasn't heard back."
"That was less than an hour ago. I am working. I will call her at the end of my lessons."
"You should really call her back."

Note to self: if your crazy sense is tingling, WALK AWAY.

I gave one more lesson and called Debbie back.

"Well," she said in a rather snippy tone, "You didn't answer my call so I called someone else.""
"That's fine. Best of luck with your horse," and I was about to hang up. (Why didn't I hang up?!?!?!)
"Wait! I haven't decided who I'm going with. He's a cowboy and I left him a message. It's basically going to be whose method I like better. Can you tell me how you trailer load and how long it will take?"
I gave her a brief run down, but I was really ready to not deal with her and kept the conversation short.
"I'll let you know," she barked.

Holy. Crap.

Another hour later, I missed a few more calls, some voice mails, and a barrage of text messages. Apparently I was the lucky winner of the "who gets to deal with crazy?" lottery. I am guessing the cowboy told her where she could stick it.

Reluctantly, I scheduled a session for the following week (not nearly soon enough, by the way). Thankfully, Debbie is local to me so I wouldn't be going far out of my way, and it would be a quick ride back to my house (and alcohol) afterwards.

The following week, I arrived at Debbie's farm, which was hidden in the woods on a nearby trail system. I was greeted by her husband, "Dude" (real name is just as ridiculous). At least Dude seemed like a nice guy.

I was finally given a background on the situation.

Basically, Debbie had a big draft horse, who we'll call "Mystery". She did everything with mystery for years and years and he was a good sport. They did hunter paces and fun rides and ring work and beach trips. Mystery was Debbie's dream horse and she spent all her time with him.

This is Mystery.

Unfortunately, Mystery came up lame (or neurological, I really can't remember) and had to be retired. Debbie was heart broken.

Enter, Black. (And that's his real name, and I don't even care.)

This is Black.

Black is a Friesian/Morgan gelding. I was a little taken aback by this cross. He has a cute face, but he has a long back, short legs, and a weird top line. I was about to ask where they got him, when I learned that he was a homebred. That's right. They made this thing on purpose.

"How old is he?" I asked, as Black tried to tear down his stall door. I figured he was their young horse and was just getting started in work.
"Fifteen."

It turns out they bred this horse, and then basically ignored him for five years, at which point, one of their boarders (yeah, these people have boarders... meanwhile I'm like going out of business over here... it's fine) fell in love with him. So they "sold him" to the boarder, but he never left the property. The boarder basically kept him for seven years without ever actually riding or handling or training him. Then, for some strange reason, the boarder didn't want him any more. So Debbie and Dude took Black back (say that ten times fast). 

So for the better part of three years, Black continued to sit. Over the summer, when Mystery came up lame, Debbie decided that Black could be her replacement riding horse. Miraculously, he actually turned out to be a relatively safe ride, even though Debbie admitted he didn't really have steering or brakes and just kind of followed the other horses on trail. 

As I mentioned, they live right on the trail system, so they were able to get out pretty regularly.

"But there's a hunter pace this weekend and he won't get in the trailer. I need him to load so I can go. Can you fix him by then?"

To recap: 15 year old homebred draft cross with zero handling, a couple months of riding, and a Saturday deadline.

I cracked the stall door to say hi to Black and he immediately tried to plow through the narrow opening. I slammed the door on his head and asked for a rope halter. Astoundingly, they did dig one out of a corner somewhere, but didn't know how to put it on. 

I spent a little time in the stall moving the horse around and getting him to back the fuck off of me. There was a fair bit of shanking him in the face with the halter. I had given the spiel about speaking up if I seem too aggressive, but it turns out I was not going to have that problem here! 

Then I led Black out of the stall and out into the driveway. He was a little rude and a little pushy but a few more yanks on the lead rope and a few smacks in the chest with the dressage whip got him under control.

Then he spotted the trailer, a few hundred feet away.

Here's a pretty accurate representation of the next few seconds of my life:

Black just charged away from the trailer, dragging me behind him. He actually ripped the lead line out of my hands and ran back to the barn. I requested a lunge line. 

Rinse. Repeat.

This time, I was able to wrap the lunge line around a tree trunk as I water skied down the driveway behind Black, who didn't know or care that I was attached to him. He hit the end of the line and the tree whipped his head back around.

I must have spent about 20 minutes working on just walking this horse down the driveway without him getting away from me. I had to use the trees on several occasions. I should have just told these people that they were assholes and gone home. But we did make slow progress. I did some bending exercises with Black and eventually he learned to give to pressure rather than pulling against it.

After that, we were actually able to approach the trailer. 

Unlike Nope, Black was actually afraid of the trailer, and his reactions were a little more violent. 

With persistence and pressure-release, I was able to get him standing with both front feet on the ramp in about ten minutes. I suggested quitting there, but Debbie asked if I could continue. Black was actually adjusting pretty well, so I agreed. 

I actually got him halfway in the trailer in about another ten minutes. He was still giving an occasional alarmed snort, but he was making a good effort. The process was made a little more difficult by the fact that Debbie didn't want me to spoil Black with food rewards. (No, we wouldn't want to spoil a horse who has lived on your property for 15 years without ever learning to walk on a lead line.)

At this point, Debbie declared that this was taking too long. She asked if she could show me what they normally did with him. These days, I would retort, "If your method worked, you wouldn't be paying me to come out here," but in 2015 I just sort of meekly agreed. 

I watched in horror as Debbie ran the lunge line through the trailer, out the side door, and back to the tie ring on the outside. She hard tied the lunge line, picked up the whip, and just started wailing on poor Black. She hit him over and over and over again, and the more he acted up, the more she hit him. 

In Black's defense, he didn't try to retaliate at all. He just grew increasingly alarmed and reared higher and higher and higher. It was very Black Stallion.

I protested and told Debbie that I didn't need to see any more of this and that this is not how I train, and she replied (while still beating the hell out of this horse), "He needs to learn that he can't get away with this!!"

The horse fought and the trailer rocked and I really thought several things (including the horse's neck) were going to break. It was the dead of winter and the horse was lathered and dripping sweat. 

Eventually, when nothing broke and the endless onslaught didn't subside, Black took a deep, shuddering breath and leaped clear across the ramp into the trailer, where he stood, shaking and panting. I wanted to scream, cry, and punch things at the same time.

Debbie turned around with a satisfied grin and declared, "So that's how I load him, but I'm getting too old to do that every time. That's why we called you."

"That may work a handful of times, but it's not going to fix your problem. I can't believe he even put up with that, honestly." I finally found my courage.

"Well, when can you come back? Like I said, we have a hunter pace on Saturday." (It was Wednesday, by the way.)

"I can't help you." I said, with a finality that is unlike me. When she continued to stare at me, I added, "Your horse doesn't have a trailer loading problem. He can't even lead. I could absolutely fix him, but he would have to come live with me" (so he could be away from you fuckers) "and I'd start with basic ground work and handling, probably in a round pen. I wouldn't even address the trailer right now. It's not his fault nobody bothered to teach him any manners in 15 years."
"And how would we get him to your house?"

"I would have to put him in a round pen with the trailer on the other side and basically send him into the trailer loose." Before she could say anything else, "But I'm not interested. This is not a situation that is safe or productive and I won't be coming back."

I took my money, got in my car, and went home, dumbfounded.

That was a year and a half ago. As I said, these people are local to me. I don't think they ever did get the horse in the trailer, and from FB it looks like they got a pair of Pasos that they ride off the property. Black just stays home and rides in the yard and out of the back of the property.

But Debbie is what inspired me to do this series.

You see, I recently went over and helped Denise load Enya. Because Debbie and Dude are local, they know several people that I know IRL. Denise is one of them. Apparently, Debbie was there when Enya wouldn't load, and then saw Denise at a trail organization meeting after I got Enya loading again. 

Debbie was very impressed with the fact that Enya was magically fixed and asked Denise who she hired to help. Denise told her it was me, not knowing the history between us.

"Oh. I tried to hire Dom once," Debbie told her. "She wasn't able to fix our horse and I was not very impressed with her approach."

I told Denise, "Ask her if she ever got that horse loading, the next time you see her. I'd be very curious to know the answer."

So there you have it. Two opposite ends of the spectrum and a sampling of why I am losing my mind in this industry. Thankfully, lunatics like this are few and far between. I have stopped taking on anybody who gives me a bad feeling when I first talk to them, and I am much quicker to just walk away if things are heading south with no hopes of redemption. Still, it frustrates me to no end that people like this think they have any room to judge anyone else, and especially to run their mouths!