Loading a horse with separation anxiety

[acw295]

Has anyone had any success with difficulty loading a horse that has serious separation anxiety?

My mare is very hard to load at home - it is not a loading issue as such as she has absolutely no fear of the trailer or lorry (makes no difference what type it is) or enclosed spaces. She loads first time, walking herself on to come home from a show or event - but she absolutely refuses to leave the yard most of the time. I literally can't get her anywhere near the lorry or trailer, she just spins and charges back to her field before we are anywhere near the ramp, going through or over anything that is in her way, which is rather scary and dangerous.

She is a 14.2hh tank - and oblivious to bridles, pressure halters, lunge lines, chiffney etc she just goes through them. My OH is 6ft3 and 18 stone and he can't hold her when she goes.....

In all other respects she is as good as gold, leads perfectly, doesn't nap, barge or pull and respects personal space. But confront her with the prospect of leaving home via transport (although she hacks alone perfectly well) and she goes beserk.

I have a new trailer and wanted to take her out in it yesterday for a short trial trip - many hours later after her repeatedly galloping back to the gate where her herd is and taking 20 mins a time to catch again I had to admit defeat as she was just dangerous and it was getting dark.

Unfortunately the yard is very large and there is no confined space to get her in that is accessible by trailer, and she is quite capable of clearing any fence in her way anyway as she has previously demonstrated....

Infuriatingly when I do get her on, she travels perfectly and literally puts herself on to come home so I know she has no issue with travelling itself.

I am at my wits end now with it. She is not clingy to any individual horse and it makes no difference if we load a companion first. She ignores food too.

Suggestions welcome! Otherwise I shall just flog the transport and stick to hacking as I just dread entering anything now

 

[be positive]

I think you first have to address the leading, if used correctly she should not be able to get away from you so easily in a control halter or bridle, is your OH handling her each time you try loading, and only then, and is he an experienced horseman, if he is not experienced and only taking over as he is big then she will be quicker to react than he is and it is compounding the problem, the handler needs to have excellent skills to read the horses body language and react correctly before it makes a move not try and rely on brute force and weight to keep hold the horse is still heavier, stronger and will win.

She needs time spent in a controlled place, controlled manner teaching her to yield to pressure, ideally by yourself it is not about having weight or strength but about having the knack of when to put pressure on and when to release, then when to reward if you get the result you want without any argument.
Only once you can keep her attention on you can you start to introduce the trailer, this needs to be done in stages without getting into a fight or her getting away, so just get her walking around it, next day walking round it with the ramp down, next with both ramps down, keep it all calm and do not move onto the next stage until you are all calm, then ask her to just put a foot on the ramp, praise if she does and finish, doing a little each day until she walks through, dont try and stop inside, once she walks through you are ready to load up and go somewhere, she is not nervous of traveling so once you have control of the loading there is no reason to to not go as planned.

It may take a few weeks, an experienced person could achieve it in one session but unless you get someone in to deal with her and teach you you need to do it in baby steps to ensure each stage is properly established as each time she gets away you are back to square 1 and your yard does not sound well enough set up to make matters easy.

 

[mayangold]

Ok what is she like hacking alone, being taken away form her friends etc without trying to load. does she spin? Shout to them? if so it sounds like true separation anxiety and some de bonding techniques would help you overcome this.

If its more that there is no panic in her but she does this every time when at home and presented with the lorry it might be a situation specific learned behavior. (esp as she ignores a companion going in first). Can you set up any behavior modification techniques?

it sounds very frustrating for you!

 

[mayangold]

BTW what 'be positive' says in the above about pressure release is classic behavior modification through positive instant consequences (release of pressure for a step forwards) and negative instant consequences (increase in pressure for a step back)

taking away something unpleasant like halter pressure as a reward for a step forwards is also called negative reinforcement because something negative is taken away

 

[Pingu42]

Your mare sounds very similar to my mare! The only way I can load her is by using a Richard Maxwell pressure halter and by using his techniques. She also went through a stage of loading and then reversing out at high speed. She will however self load if another horse goes first. She has suffered from ulcers this last year (and probably since we have had her) but we now seemed to have sorted them. She has gone from a tense, stressy pony to a much calmer and happier pony. Not sure if it is a coincidence but she is now loading beautifully on her own with no high speed reversing so I do wonder if she was reluctant to go in trailer due to pain.

 

[Annagain]

My boy's a bit similar - he'll stay in his stable or the field alone, hack out alone, walk out in hand alone, just don't ask him to go on the trailer alone! He too will load himself to come home or if he's joining a friend on board. We solved it by taking him places in company for a long time - first of all putting the other horse on first, then putting him on before his friend. We then started travelling him alone but meeting his friend at the other end and all this seems to have worked. We now go places alone, but more often than not we go with a friend (mostly as I prefer it)

A big problem we had was he'd walk on and then shoot backwards as soon as I left his head so I rigged up one of those over the door buckets over the breaching bar and put a handful of pony nuts in it and used a lunge line to load him. That would give me enough time to nip round the back while still holding on to him. As long as I went down the inside of the trailer and talked to him all the way he'd stay on. If he did shoot back I'd have enough length of line to grab it as he went backwards and I could then let go of the other end but still keep hold of him so he couldn't get away which was a big breakthrough as he couldn't run away from me. I still do this now 7 years later. Of course having a 2nd person to put the back across is by far the easiest way but isn't always possible!

 

[acw295]

Ok what is she like hacking alone, being taken away form her friends etc without trying to load. does she spin? Shout to them? if so it sounds like true separation anxiety and some de bonding techniques would help you overcome this.

If its more that there is no panic in her but she does this every time when at home and presented with the lorry it might be a situation specific learned behavior. (esp as she ignores a companion going in first). Can you set up any behavior modification techniques?

it sounds very frustrating for you!

Hi, thanks it is really is frustrating - she hacks alone fine, less enthusiastic than when in company (but that is true of a lot of horses really) and when a long way away from home or somewhere new on her own will neigh frantically sometimes but still goes forward. She doesn't properly nap, although now and again she tries stopping when we first leave the yard but I can always snap her out of it within a few seconds, so its a half-hearted attempt.

She absolutely can't ever be turned out alone - she goes bonkers and behaves exactly the same as when being loaded, but when turned out in company completely ignores the others so its not like she has a close bond with any particular horse.

The only time I have issues is with loading going out - and it makes no difference what type of lorry or trailer it is. To come home she practically throws herself on - she has been known when out in company to panic if she is loaded last and break away from the tie up and trot up the ramp before we are ready for her so she shows absolutely no fear of loading then - just of being left.

She has always been a bit bonkers, needs sedating for clipping etc but that is a Welsh D trait I've found. I've had her over 7 years and she is 17 (ish-we don't really know). Previous owner had her for 7 years, so she's not been passed about lots either, although I don't know anything about her early life (0-3ish)

 

[acw295]

Hi, thanks for that. Sorry I wasn't clear, she leads perfectly at all other times. It is only when I try and attempt to load her that she turns into a completely different horse and will ignore any technique whatsoever. She yields to pressure normally, I only have to point at her, not touch to get her to move over/back etc and she never pulls/drags. I only tried my OH on Sunday as she almost dislocated my shoulder when she spun the last time and I was in too much pain to hold her again, so he had to go and retrieve her.

She doesn't give you any time to react though - I wish I could record her doing it - she just does a very fast half-rear spin and then is in gallop before you know it. She doesn't stop first, so you can't apply any pressure and this is when I am 20m+ plus away from the ramp - so well before I am anywhere near it.

She has to walk past the parked trailer every day, and she will walk past and around any other lorry/trailer and anyone else that is being loaded and not bat an eyelid, so she can tell the difference between being asked to load and just walking up to and around a trailer/lorry. I can give it another try though- although will only be able to be at weekends as it is pitch black when I get to the yard now in the week until Spring (boo to commuting!).

The yard set up is definitely not ideal as there is nothing to stop her from getting on the track to the fields and it is a big working farm so she can get a long way before I can catch her again! Fortunately though she can't get off the farm or on to the road without jumping anything huge and I don't think she'd do that.

I think you first have to address the leading, if used correctly she should not be able to get away from you so easily in a control halter or bridle, is your OH handling her each time you try loading, and only then, and is he an experienced horseman, if he is not experienced and only taking over as he is big then she will be quicker to react than he is and it is compounding the problem, the handler needs to have excellent skills to read the horses body language and react correctly before it makes a move not try and rely on brute force and weight to keep hold the horse is still heavier, stronger and will win.

She needs time spent in a controlled place, controlled manner teaching her to yield to pressure, ideally by yourself it is not about having weight or strength but about having the knack of when to put pressure on and when to release, then when to reward if you get the result you want without any argument.
Only once you can keep her attention on you can you start to introduce the trailer, this needs to be done in stages without getting into a fight or her getting away, so just get her walking around it, next day walking round it with the ramp down, next with both ramps down, keep it all calm and do not move onto the next stage until you are all calm, then ask her to just put a foot on the ramp, praise if she does and finish, doing a little each day until she walks through, dont try and stop inside, once she walks through you are ready to load up and go somewhere, she is not nervous of traveling so once you have control of the loading there is no reason to to not go as planned.

It may take a few weeks, an experienced person could achieve it in one session but unless you get someone in to deal with her and teach you you need to do it in baby steps to ensure each stage is properly established as each time she gets away you are back to square 1 and your yard does not sound well enough set up to make matters easy.

 

[acw295]

My boy's a bit similar - he'll stay in his stable or the field alone, hack out alone, walk out in hand alone, just don't ask him to go on the trailer alone! He too will load himself to come home or if he's joining a friend on board. We solved it by taking him places in company for a long time - first of all putting the other horse on first, then putting him on before his friend. We then started travelling him alone but meeting his friend at the other end and all this seems to have worked. We now go places alone, but more often than not we go with a friend (mostly as I prefer it)



A big problem we had was he'd walk on and then shoot backwards as soon as I left his head so I rigged up one of those over the door buckets over the breaching bar and put a handful of pony nuts in it and used a lunge line to load him. That would give me enough time to nip round the back while still holding on to him. As long as I went down the inside of the trailer and talked to him all the way he'd stay on. If he did shoot back I'd have enough length of line to grab it as he went backwards and I could then let go of the other end but still keep hold of him so he couldn't get away which was a big breakthrough as he couldn't run away from me. I still do this now 7 years later. Of course having a 2nd person to put the back across is by far the easiest way but isn't always possible!

Thanks, that's really interesting.

I am limited in options with company as we can only tow 2.1t (my trailer plus Molly is about 1.5- 1.6t) and all her fieldmates are quite big so we'd be close to the limit which is a bit risky. Although we could probably get away with it for a few trial trips around the village. I need a small pony companion really and we don't have any of those! I'm sure if she went out more often then she would get better, as years ago when I went out more often she was not as bad, but nowadays I only go out about 10 times a year, and this was the first attempt with this trailer (I used to have a small old lorry) from this year (we moved to a new county in March).

It is a vicious circle though, the worse she is the more anxious I get each time and she is sensitive so picks up on it. But no-one else wants to handle her which I quite understand!

 

[9tails]

I think you first have to address the leading, if used correctly she should not be able to get away from you so easily in a control halter or bridle, is your OH handling her each time you try loading, and only then, and is he an experienced horseman, if he is not experienced and only taking over as he is big then she will be quicker to react than he is and it is compounding the problem, the handler needs to have excellent skills to read the horses body language and react correctly before it makes a move not try and rely on brute force and weight to keep hold the horse is still heavier, stronger and will win.

Totally agree with this. A 5 stone kid with horse sense can lead mine through a battlefield but someone with no horse sense can't get her to take a step, no matter how much hauling they do. You can't use brute strength to get a horse to do anything, they may do it the once but then it's game over. Try to place the trailer or lorry somewhere out of sight of her fieldmates so they're not calling over the fence and work slowly and methodically, without brute force.

 

[be positive]

Hi, thanks for that. Sorry I wasn't clear, she leads perfectly at all other times. It is only when I try and attempt to load her that she turns into a completely different horse and will ignore any technique whatsoever. She yields to pressure normally, I only have to point at her, not touch to get her to move over/back etc and she never pulls/drags. I only tried my OH on Sunday as she almost dislocated my shoulder when she spun the last time and I was in too much pain to hold her again, so he had to go and retrieve her.

She doesn't give you any time to react though - I wish I could record her doing it - she just does a very fast half-rear spin and then is in gallop before you know it. She doesn't stop first, so you can't apply any pressure and this is when I am 20m+ plus away from the ramp - so well before I am anywhere near it.

She has to walk past the parked trailer every day, and she will walk past and around any other lorry/trailer and anyone else that is being loaded and not bat an eyelid, so she can tell the difference between being asked to load and just walking up to and around a trailer/lorry. I can give it another try though- although will only be able to be at weekends as it is pitch black when I get to the yard now in the week until Spring (boo to commuting!).

The yard set up is definitely not ideal as there is nothing to stop her from getting on the track to the fields and it is a big working farm so she can get a long way before I can catch her again! Fortunately though she can't get off the farm or on to the road without jumping anything huge and I don't think she'd do that.

You know she will do the spin then gallop off so you need to put the pressure on her and keep it on before she starts to spin, that is the point of having the pressure halter, she may not seem to give you warning but there will be a point where she hesitates or she will do it in the same place so you need to get hold of her before even if she is walking forward, I have dealt with tricky loaders and if they are that sharp you cannot really release them until they are in the box, you don't have to hold too tightly but you need them to feel something until they are loading properly and reliably. As she is generally good it should not take long to get her loading but you will need to be firmer every step of the way not wait until you are in trouble before taking charge as by then she has done a runner and the issue is compounded.