I am so, so proud of my student who has *maintained* the perfect self-loading and self-unloading response of her horse.
Not only that, but through her realisation that horses' behaviour can be changed through scientific techniques, her previously scary horse is now safe and enjoyable to ride out anywhere (farm, hills, forest, beach).
This has taken a course of sessions (it's a process, there's no magic wand), homework, and consistency of cues 24/7.
Well done, my dear!
Vid of newly backed horse. We're aiming a gradual habituation, calmness, and safety.
It's like watching paint dry, which is wxactly what we want. Create a good default setting of calmness and obedience, for greater safety and enjoyment of riding.
Atm she has go, stop, go faster/slower in walk, and direct turns.
Tomorrow, we'll train her indirect turns (deals with straightness and losses of line), and let's have a go at the super-calming long walk.
Then we'll repeat it all in trot!
With gradual desensitisation techniques, it's important to not overwhelm ('flood') the horse.
This clip was quite far on in the session, when I was pretty confident I could dwlete any hyper-reactive response.
Start at the lowest threshold of fear possible, and work very gradually from there.
There are clear measures of when it's ok to progress, and I can teach you those, either online or in-person.
A vid of the early approach conditioning for chainsaw phobia.
This is introducing the machine without the engine running. The background noise is the tree felling work.
I can't tell you how much this horse has changed from this morning!
"C is doing so well with loading :) such a relief."
My response:
"Well done for maintaining it.
If you aim for cue-initiated, error-free training every time you handle him, and always use the same loading set-up and routine, he'll develop very reliable habits (neural pathways), and will just get better and better. It's always down to us. 🥰"
Different horse in vid, but same process/result.
My next case is a horse that loads easily, but travels badly, getting stressed and sweaty.
This is usually resolved completely by revisiting all the stages of loading to look for confusions and difficult moments. These often occur on the ramp, but it could also be the floor, the partition or even the bum bar. Once we have resolved any tension or confusion, the horse will usually travel calmly, even scrambles usually get fixed this way. Pretty cool stuff.
Different horse in vid.
"I'm beyond thrilled."
Feedback on loading retraining for horse, mum and daughter.
Different horse in video. Same process. Same outcome.
A really nice day. Trained a tense horse, went to a fab museum exhibition, had a power-nap, then did a really successful loading session.
We pre-trained the basic responses for 2 sessions, then spent a session on ramp, floor and partition training.
We'll complete it with self-loading with the handler, and the bum bar training, tomorrow morning. I'm really looking forward to it.
A very sensitive and confused Arab mare trained to self-load and self-unload calmly and on cue. It is so nice to see her relax and get mental security from having the basic responses trained with clear, correct and consistent cues.
She was prone to rushing off, rearing, and then scrambles during transport.
Resolving scrambling has a slightly lower success rate than other loading issues, but retraining the basic responses, then the whole process of loading and unloading in stages is our best bet, and does often result in the scrambling resolving.
Let's see how it goes.
Vid is of one of my toughest cases, all retrained, with his owner.
Spent the morning doing the pre-training for a horse that doesn't load well, and also rushes off the float.
Then did the loading retraining process with her.
Haven't reached the stage of her self-loading yet, because it's an angle loader, so we need to deepen her responses first , but we have her loading and unloading on cue, every time.
We also had a little time to begin the hoof behaviour retraining.
She also has a few other issues, so we can probably resolve those in the new year.
Remember: I can usually train it, but the student has to maintain it. The new responses only last as long as the new cues do!
Vid is of a different horse, after retraining with me.
Scrambling feedback.
"She 100% never scrambled again. Also I found if I loaded her from the roadside we had absolutely no issues. I wouldn’t have contemplated loading her on the side of the road before you came, but she was calmly self loading by then so it was possible. I was super impressed by how quickly your training resolved it."
Scrambling is one of the behaviours that can Have a lower success rate, but it can still be resolved, so don't worry, you're probably not stuck with it forever.
There isn't a specific technique to delete scrambling, but, by retraining all the loading stages first, scrambling almost always spontaneously diminishes, or resolves completely, due to reduced confusion and the resulting increased mental security of the horse.
Loading - what they say:
"You are a star. My newly learned techniques have worked on the other horse and I had him loading and unloading onto a strange angle-load trailer after only 30 minutes training. I am thrilled."
"What a buzz it was to take P on her first trailer outing. She loaded like a pro both times and the world is our oyster now thanks to you and Equitation Science" G
"He is now perfect to load and unload."
"My horse was a horrible loader - she jumped the chest bar and out the jockey door, destroyed the inside of the float and escaped out under the chain at the back, destroyed the partition and tried to jump over the back ramp to name just a few incidents with her.
The first trainer gave up and I had to bring her home in a stock truck after two months of him trying to train her. The second trainer managed to teach her to load, but only he could do it and she was still in full flight/fight mode and I couldn't load her when she was this dangerous still.
In desperation, I tried a third trainer, who was Julie Stapleton. We had three ground work sessions and two loading sessions in one day and I was safely and happily loading my horse at the end of the day. My horse was still a bit nervous, but not dangerous and since then we haven't looked back and she loads, travels and unloads like a dream.
I would fully recommend Julie and ES to anyone!"
"I have gone from dreading loading from the night before, not being able to sleep, worrying like mad and ending up crying when Diva has towed me back off the box or gone to rear and I have spent two hours loading and now I know I can load no problems, loose rein and she has been self loading as well!!!! Sooo nice.
I had to take her to the vets the other day and no problems, so its good to be able to load when you NEED to not just for an event!!" D
"W just went on the truck. What a super boy he was; he went in the dark at 6am. Didn't hesitate. All thanks to you."
"I wanted to say how
