• You may need to evacuate in case of a fire or some other catastrophe.

and what you might do about it.

There are a number of reasons why horses or mules don't want to load into the trailer. They tend to be claustrophobic. They'd rather not enter into a dark, small spot that makes a tinny, hollow sound when they step up into it. This makes them nervous. Or maybe the horse or mule has loaded with no problem a time or two, or perhaps many times before, but then seemingly for no reason at all, he just won't go in. Maybe the animal associates getting into the trailer with a bad experience. Whatever the reason for the resistance - the sound and constricted feeling of the trailer, a prior bad experience, or some other unknown reasons for refusal - it's a problem that needs to be fixed.

or mule refuses to go into the trailer by moving to the side, or backwards, or worse, tries to run over you.

The groundwork foundation described last month in the April Issue addresses horses or mules that are Difficult to lead, or that Bolt, or Balk. Get the animal responding to the feel of the rope and then following that feel consistently, softly, and without resistance.

What needs to happen is the achievement of consistent forward movement in all situations. Until you have an animal that is responding to the feel of the lead rope in a soft and consistent manner you may not be able to load him softly and consistently.

It's important that you take the time you need with this before you are ever confronted with an emergency. Practice leading and getting consistent forward movement long before you ever need it.

Therefore doing groundwork is the most important part of teaching trailer loading. So, what is the purpose of our groundwork? It is to get soft, willing, and consistent responses. Doesn't this also sound like what we need when we ask our animals to load into a trailer?

I see a lot of horse and mule owners today who allow their animals to take their time getting in the trailer. They allow them to sniff the floor, check the weather, see which ways the wind blows, and then maybe they stroll on into the trailer. Maybe these owners let their horses or mules decide which days of the week are okay for trailer loading, and maybe even which types of trailers they'd
load in.

Instead of tolerating this behavior, we have to raise our standards and say, "Look, you need to go forward and you need to do it now in a soft and willing manner." We need to be skillful and we need our animals to be skillful. If we allow our horses or mules to fail then we weaken their skills and our animals read our ineffectiveness. Remember, if a fire is heading in your direction, you aren't going to want to negotiate about trailer loading with your horse or mule in such a situation.

So, one way to test the solidness of your groundwork is to raise the ante so to speak. Remember that this is to be done before approaching a trailer loading situation. To do this, increase the stimulation the horse is experiencing. Let's say you are pretty certain that your horse will softly and willingly follow your cue to go forward. Now test this willingness by increasing the stimulation of the situation. For example, you might want to see if he will walk over a platform or a tarp without hesitation (see photo #3). Or, perhaps you have set up an area with flags or plastic bags flapping about and you want him to follow your forward movement cue. In my clinics we set up a "waterfall" (see photo #4) to assess the animal's responsiveness to the forward cue. If he's not going to respond to your cues in this situation, he may very well not respond to your cues in the trailer loading situation.

safely and come up off the contact from the lead rope, then I don't tie them in the trailer.

• Which is better a slant load or a straight load?

In my opinion, they're no different. Some people have told me that their horse likes to ride backwards. I don't really know why they do that, but I believe it's because they are looking to go out the way they came in. Stock trailers are great, in fact, I think they're the best because they're so open.

• If I am having trouble loading my horse in a small trailer is it okay to load him in a bigger trailer until he gets comfortable with loading?

In my opinion, this is fine. Let them load and unload and don't rush to shut the door and lock them in. Let them walk up and if they want to back out let them do that and then reload them until they can stand inside comfortably and relaxed.