Yesterday we had gale force winds, so of course, I decide to work Daisy on her lunging (just lightly) and her first official "re-trailering" lesson.
I wanted to see how she was with the trailer, and chose my goal from there. She was okay grazing, but when I led her to the trailer, she started this series of rearing...more like "I don't want to go there" as opposed to "I am afraid to go there." My goal became "I want you to stand in front of the ramp until I say otherwise".
It took a while...there were several rearing episodes, but those were more feet in the air, land, see what I was going to do. I just yanked on the rope halter, backed her, and lead her to the trailer again. After about 3 or 4 of these, she would stand at the ramp and sniff it. The first few times she pulled away when she thought she was done. She finally, after rearing, walked to the trailer and stood. The last time she walked up to the ramp without rearing and stood there. We quit at that.
I did make sure that after she did what I asked, I released pressure on her by walking away from the trailer and letting her graze. I can almost see her processing...this morning, when I took her to her pasture, she pointedly stopped and looked at the trailer, as if she was thinking.
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