Never mind that my mom had been riding horses all her life. I think her eyes got bigger and her nerves got stretched harder than any horse's ever did at the sight of a horse trailer. I don't know what it was/is, but trailering can be a source of anxiety for the many people and horses. Anyone have suggestions for how to make this necessary activity less stressful for all? Read some of my tips below.
1. Keep any high strung people away while loading and unloading.
Horses will pick up on human nerves so if a person who's participating in the loading or unloading is nervous, the horse will sniff that out and likely become nervous as well.
2. Make loading and unloading something you do more often than just when you're leaving the farm or going to a show.
Horses don't tend to want to leave their familiar pastures so if there's a way that you can disassociate loading and unloading from actual travel, that's a good thing. If you're horse is used to getting on the trailer once a week and getting right back off, he'll forget about the few times you actually took him somewhere else after he was on the trailer. Plus, if you can make the process something he does frequently, he'll become calmly bored with it.
3. Travel with a calmer horse.
If possible, there's nothing more calming to a horse than traveling with a buddy, especially if that buddy is so completely dead calm bored with trailering that the idea that getting on a trailer could be scary is laughable to him. If a skittish horse sees a companion horse step onto the trailer like it's the most natural, unscary thing in the world, he's more likely to follow suit.
Anyone have any other good tips...there are lots of techniques. Share what has (and hasn't) worked for you in the comments section.
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