#hauling

Recently my friend Kayla shared that her injured horse wouldn’t get on my trailer in time for his hospital imaging appointment. (Pictured) It was met with a lot of unsolicited advice and comments like “I bet I could get him to load”. I evacuate horses in every SoCal wildfire I can get there in time for, and have been trained in large animal rescue and learned loading tricks from the best. I could never confidently say I hold a match to those I learned from, but I get them out.

One thing I would like to address, that I never show on my social media, is that when I evacuate animals from wildfires, and they don’t load, it gets ugly. Owners sobbing and grabbing their belongings out of barns, panicking, agitating their animals. Blindfolded horses cutting themselves open as I slam the doors shut as soon as they step up. Friends and family being knocked on their asses, hands rope burned wide open. I will do things to get a horse on a trailer I would never do in a non-emergency situation. Everyone would rather a horse be scared or scuffed up than left behind in a fire.

I would never put a horse through that if they don’t have to. Stan was injured and had an imaging appointment at a hospital facility we can haul to. This facility was more affordable than having a vet come to us, or walking him a block down the street. After we ran up on time for the appointment, I continued to work with him to get him on my trailer. He has hauled with me before and normally loads just fine. I wanted the day to end in success even if he missed his appointment, but we decided he was too sore, let him eat from the trailer to keep it from being a negative experience, and put him away.

There’s about 5 ways to load a horse that I try, they are all individuals and prefer to be handled differently. All techniques are the same old thing, pressure and release. Pressure away from the trailer or when they pull back, release towards the trailer or when they take a step forward.

If you don’t want it to be ugly, you need to work with your horse loading. If you don’t have a trailer, some equestrian centers host clinics and if know a friend with one, and they are like me, they would be thrilled to park it at your place (or boarding facility) if you covered their trailer parking fee for the month.

Can't think of a better way to say farewell to the current place than the photo of Sean showing up the night after we moved in with the washing machine he'd just picked up.