An Unlikely Assistant
/It was time for my Fell Pony foal Amanda’s trailer loading lesson. I try to get them started at loading at 3 days old or so, and then do at least seven short trips in their first two weeks of life. Their mom has to be stellar at loading, so I make sure that’s in order first. With Amanda, her mom’s been loading into trailers for me for almost two decades, so no problem there!
Amanda is a confident little girl, so she’s apt to go exploring when she gets the idea in her mind. So I wasn’t surprised after I opened the gate into the grassy area where the trailer is that she wandered off away from her mom and me. Then she would run towards us then past us in the other direction, obviously enjoying herself. My goal was to have her follow her mom into the small pen I’d set up outside the trailer then into the trailer itself. However, she kept going past the opening into the pen and then turning and running past it in the other direction, intentionally.
I’ve been through this routine before, having raised many foals and done many trailer loading lessons, so I know eventually they will follow mom. I’m always wanting to get to the goal sooner, of course, so I was pleased when I got some unlikely assistance. My young stallion was in his grazing paddock about fifty yards away, and he was watching what was going on. When Amanda went past us again and toward him, he let out a high volume whinny. Amanda was immediately alarmed that another pony was seemingly that close and whirled and came to us. Loading into the trailer then proceeded easily. Thank you Moth!
And lest you think that that was an isolated occurrence, Moth helped out again in the exact same way during the next lesson. I was very grateful!
© Jenifer Morrissey, 2024