Ep 50: Overcoming Anxiety in the Trailer
A horse is naturally created with certain survival instincts—the key word here is “survival.” This is often referred to as the horse’s “fight or flight” instinct.
A horse’s flight instinct is very strong, so it has a tendency to fall into stress and anxiety easily.
Anxiety is an anticipation of an event that might happen. Even if nothing is actually happening, the anticipation of pain or discomfort can be enough to cause a horse to panic.
When a horse’s fight or flight instinct is triggered, it doesn’t pause to analyze the situation—it just reacts. When a horse encounters a situation that it deems to be “life-threatening,” it will flip into a reactive state of mind. In this reactive state, the horse’s behavior becomes very unpredictable.
When a horse gets anxious, the first thing it tends to do is move its feet. If a horse is kicking in the trailer, something must have triggered its “flight” instinct. This reaction indicates that the horse just wants to move away from whatever is scaring it.
In this instance, the trailer itself could have been the trigger that caused that reaction.
Our best memories are attached to emotions. That emotion could be happiness, fear, or panic. The same is true for our horses. Horse’s memories are also attached to emotions, and many of them are attached to fear.
Just because something doesn’t seem scary to us doesn’t mean it’s not scary to a horse. When our horses are scared, they don’t need scolded. They need reassured.
In everything we do with our horses, we are either building their confidence or destroying it.
Always look for a way to provide a reward and/or reassurance to that horse. Even if you have to put a buddy horse in the trailer to give that horse more security, that is okay. Sometimes, it is better to go out of your normal routine to give that horse a little extra confidence in the situation.
Over time, you want to build up enough confidence so that the horse’s anxiety is squeezed out of the equation. This process may take months or even years. Over time, that horse will begin to recognize the trailer as a ‘happy place’ rather than a trigger for anxiety.
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