It is often said that horses live in the
present. This is true. However horses also have the best memory of
all domestic animals.
The way your horse responds to something today won`t
necessarily be the way he/she responded yesterday.
Our horse, Bob, has always been very easy to trailer
load. Yesterday he did not want to get
on the trailer. We have learned that
everything means something and nothing means nothing. We found that the door to the upper storage
area at the front of the trailer had been left open. So Bob could see this nice big cave that was
a perfect hiding place for a cougar or even the notorious and deadly sabre
toothed butterfly. There was no way he
was going near that scary place. We closed
the door and led him on the trailer. The
lead on was important because he trusts us and as long as we were leading he
was okay with following. We let him stay
on the trailer and we stayed with him while he carefully checked everything
out. We took him off and did some
ground exercises and then repeated the
lead on and rest. We did this several
times over the next hour. By the end of
it he was okay with getting on the trailer.
What happens tomorrow? I don`t know.
I hope all will be okay, but, if he has an issue we will respect it and
help him through it. There is no doubt
that he will remember the scary moment yesterday but he will also remember that
nothing bad happened. No matter what
keep the horse`s trust and maintain your leadership.
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