esselle
Well-Known Member
Hi all
We have owned my daughter's new horse now for 1.5 months. She is lovely in practically every way, we are very very happy with her.
We were fully aware when we bought her that she had only travelled on a box (she was home-bred). She does indeed load and travel brilliantly on a box as we've tried her on friends'
The difficulty comes in that I only have a trailer (box definitely not an option for me :-(). Over last several days we have patiently been introducing our mare to the trailer. She seemed very panicky with the central partition in so I have removed it to make it seem more spacious. She has gone through phases of planting, walking in and out happily, shooting out, standing in the trailer and walking out happy and now back to going in very reluctantly. Once in she doesn't seem unduly scared and will stand for a while, receive praise then admittedly try and rush out the front ramp.
Last night she went in happily a couple of times then just refused and stomped and swished. Rather than risk losing patience with her we called it a day and put her away.
We haven't even reached the closing any ramps stage as she's a super hot/sensitive horse anyway and I am so frightened she will just explode!! If she did that she could seriously hurt herself or us in the process of trying to release her and of course I don't want that.
I just don't know what to do for the best as we don't seem to be making headway. My daughter finally has a horse she is excited about taking out and we can't go anywhere :-(.
Any help really welcomed. Thank you
We have owned my daughter's new horse now for 1.5 months. She is lovely in practically every way, we are very very happy with her.
We were fully aware when we bought her that she had only travelled on a box (she was home-bred). She does indeed load and travel brilliantly on a box as we've tried her on friends'
The difficulty comes in that I only have a trailer (box definitely not an option for me :-(). Over last several days we have patiently been introducing our mare to the trailer. She seemed very panicky with the central partition in so I have removed it to make it seem more spacious. She has gone through phases of planting, walking in and out happily, shooting out, standing in the trailer and walking out happy and now back to going in very reluctantly. Once in she doesn't seem unduly scared and will stand for a while, receive praise then admittedly try and rush out the front ramp.
Last night she went in happily a couple of times then just refused and stomped and swished. Rather than risk losing patience with her we called it a day and put her away.
We haven't even reached the closing any ramps stage as she's a super hot/sensitive horse anyway and I am so frightened she will just explode!! If she did that she could seriously hurt herself or us in the process of trying to release her and of course I don't want that.
I just don't know what to do for the best as we don't seem to be making headway. My daughter finally has a horse she is excited about taking out and we can't go anywhere :-(.
Any help really welcomed. Thank you