Hi everyone, sorry not been around long story and lots of upheaval and moving 8 horses.
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Loading Pye
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It's been a long time for Pye to trust at liberty especially when it comes to small spaces, shelters and not having had a reason to in the last 3 years - trailer loading.
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Pye in the past has been beaten in a stable to try and make him submissive and trailer loading became impossible for him after he trampled his previous owner in the trailer when she bashed her head when trying to load him, ended up screaming as she hurt herself making Pye panic and ended up trampling on her (That's the story I was given)
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We had to quickly move the whole herd a couple of weeks ago and first attempts to load Pye into a lorry were unsuccessful. Bearing in mind there was no round pen and we're loading directly from an open field.
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We loaded BamBam first, he's always loaded well. Then Pye bless him sweating like crazy before he even got to the lorry manage to get 2 feet on the tailgate, but the panic in his eyes he couldn't go any further and rearing started. Because he then got stressed BamBam thought something was wrong and started to get stressed inside the lorry, reared and hooked his feet over the partition that my friend had to go and free him. That was the end of trying to load and we had to put Pye, BamBam and Sonny who now thought something was wrong, back in the carrel.
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Day 2, sedation with sedalin to the maximum dosage and whilst waiting it worked lovely, then the trailer came, not lorry this time. We'd taken BamBam and Sonny earlier leaving just Pye. Even asking for his feet to be on the ramp was too much for him, so my friend who's seen Monty's demos said about coming up from behind with a large pallet. I said as long as you keep out of the kick zone!
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Now Pye was faced with a man coming up from behind with a large pallet and his focus changed from the trailer to being boxed in from behind and I led the way, I asked him to come forwards, on the dually of course, and he flew into the trailer at my side then realised he was loaded. He was panicky, but let me calm him and tie him up. He stood still for the journey, and at the other end we opened the trailer to find a very sweaty pony bless him. .
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Unloading my friend was going to open the front of the trailer, but Pye was so stressed he would have bolted out the front, so all his practice of backing up came into play. On the dually I asked him to back up off the trailer slowly and he listened all the way out then we stopped when he got off the ramp so he could see he'd achieved it. He then saw the rest of the herd and we let him go and have a run around with the herd :D.
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Now we just need our own trailer so we can practice and not have any frightened ponies.
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For Pye the fear from behind of unknown and trusting me to take him forwards was the key to loading him this time.
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Seaton was our next issue, but that's another post! ;)