We have a trailer parked here through Wednesday that is all set up to be safe to load horses in. I finally had a chance to play with the entire trailer pattern rather than just sniff and play around the two-horse straight-load that’s here but not stabilized for loading, nor does it have a ramp for the “nose-neck-feet” part of the pattern.
The trailer we used looks something like this only with a ramp:
I had never loaded Rocky myself until very recently, when the dentist came out in his mobile van. I’d seen Rocky load easily with his former trainer and unload nervously but trusting her to tell him when to step down. I’ve never seen him in a trailer with a ramp. Even as I committed the pattern to memory, I thought, Oh great, I’m now going to install a fear of the trailer into Rocky by getting too direct-line, making mistakes, and obviously not knowing what I’m doing.
But.
Parelli isn’t about training horses as much as it is about training people — and a trained person can then teach their horses things. Maybe Rock didn’t need practice around trailers but I sure do.
And I confess: Today was my first time doing anything with a horse and trailer by myself, much less loading him.
Horsegirl on a Journey 