Specially when you’ve helped them release old trauma around it.
I heard the hooves on the trailer ramp from the garden and walked over to look, thinking it was Rapunzel. I just missed getting my phone lined up for Oliver’s lovely calm soft footed exit but managed to capture him standing there afterwards. 8,9,10 years after his last float training, Oliver just now loaded himself on and off the horse float all by himself!
This is a horse who is one of the toughest traumatized horse float trainings I’ve ever done. Not long before he came to me, he’d had a float accident where he’d pulled loose from the tie up, thrashed that giant body around and was trying to jump out the back of the float. His old owner thought “he had a screw loose” and it turned out he did – but like most other “screws loose”, it was fixable.
He’s 18 hands, so even in a big float he’s close to the roof (imagine how much he banged his head in the pull back?) We had to figure out how to teach him where the roof is and how he didn’t need to be afraid of it.
Really good “training” sticks even years and years later, whether it’s getting on the float or trailer or carrying a rider or anything else. Here he is in this photo, loading himself at liberty into the float to deliberately and sentiently show the other horse how to feel the roof of the float with his ears. Teaching Oliver how to do that was the key to changing that horrible “throwing their head up into the roof as they rush out” thing.
You can read the full story about that as part of this blog here:
What IS really good training?
I blog for all kinds of reasons – I’m basking in the memories at the moment – but specially to reach folk who think they have to “settle” for problems or think that they’re not good enough or knowledgeable enough to help their horse to change a problem.
I KNOW that not good enough stuff – I bought the T-shirt and wore it A LOT. That’s why I’m soooo good at helping people through that crap. You don’t have to settle and just like it turned out I was good enough, you are too…
Louise wrote to me just this morning: Your way of working with horses is a gold mine full of fabulous layers. It’s a marvelous course and I feel I could be mining the insights forever. With love and gratitude, Louise
