She'd clearly had enough of me by the time that Charly rode her and felt that I was cramping her style as she tried to bite me!. Hopefully we will be able to go 'off-line' next time and then she'll only have one person to listen to. I blame Queen Victoria who, in an attempt to 'improve' the breed loaned a couple of Arabian stallions to the New Forest Commoners. As a result even supposedly pure bred New Forest ponies have some Arabian traits such as the Arabian neck twist. Ponies like Jazz are always saying "I know! I know!" and getting a little ahead of themselves. Not really a bad trait to have.
After this Lindy and I went off to a horse that is fine to load into a trailer but a really difficult unloader. Happy to load, happy to stand in the trailer and happy to travel, he still comes out of the front of the trailer like a bullet which we can only put down to the fact that he has been knocked by a few of the slam gates on the Forest and the sides of the front door of the trailer since. This has been going on for a year or more and gradually but surely getting worse so that the bar only has to come down for him to be off. It's impossible to stop him with the head collar alone and it wouldn't be a good idea to stand in his way.
I started off by teaching him to back out of the trailer so that the owner has a good fall back position. He has never been asked to do this before. Although he was a little bit worried about it at first, he backed off calmly and slowly, step by step and grew more confident as we practised without speeding up or making the decision to back off without being asked.
With that in place we took a good look at what was happening when he was asked to unload through the front ramp. He was very happy to accept clickered treats at intervals but at this early stage they had no influence over whether he was prepared to stand still in the trailer once the bar was down. Unloading into a panelled area didn't slow him down either although it did mean he was safe once he had gone out. The answer maybe to recreate a similar scenario for him where clickered treats might be used to reward him for simply standing still and waiting. I just hope that in a situation where I am perhaps the last resort it isn't actually a lost resort.
