This letter is in regard to a horse trainer by the name of Larry Levrets of Bandon, Oregon. I was having the hardest time getting my mare to load into our very first trailer. Hers was not a unique problem, but it there was a little bit of history to it. There was the "trailer incident".
Our first ever trailering experience happened about a year after I adopted her. She was about four or five and we had wanted to go to the beach. All was fine until the trip back home. It was a friend's two horse side-by-side trailer with Plexiglas in the front over the mangers. We lovingly filled the manger with alfalfa to keep her busy. About half way back home I noticed some green slimy stuff smeared on the Plexiglas. We stopped to take a look and found that she was choking. It all turned out fine, but she didn't want anything to do with a two horse side-by-side trailer again. So... for our first trailer, I bought her a newer, roomy, two horse slant load. Well, she was not particularly impressed with that trailer and it always ended up being a fight to get her in the trailer. She would dance all over the place, trying to be anywhere except in the trailer, that included wherever I was standing. This was compounded by people offering their advise (or just taking it upon themselves) to get her in the trailer. Most were not sound ideas.
One day I was bemoaning our trailer woes to our farrier and he said he knew of a fellow that did great work with these kinds of problems. He told me a lot about him and related a story or two about horses that Larry Levrets had helped. So I gave him a call... Mr. Levrets made time to come to my house. We talked first about his background, his training philosophy, then her history, my actions, CoCo's reactions, and anything else that might help resolve this dilemma. Then Mr. Levrets started working with CoCo. Right away, I could tell Larry was good.
CoCo was behaving just as she behaved with me, which was good, nothing like taking your car to the garage and have it run just fine. Nevertheless, Larry was so patient, calm and light handed that he had her standing calmly in our horse trailer in less than 50 minutes. Wow! I was very impressed. Before Larry came to our rescue, I had often put in two or three hour sessions that ended by me giving up in frustration (and a little fear) and CoCo dancing all over the place. Then he had me do it myself and my mare was a little fidgety at first, but we did it and we did it calmly. This made me realize that yes, she was capable of getting into this trailer, calmly, and that boy, did she have my number. I had a lot of work to do on myself! Larry is very helpful with building the confidence of the owner/handler. Through Larry, I realized what I was doing to compound any fear that she had.
I would recommend Larry Levrets to anyone whose horse is having trouble loading. I have also watched him start several horses and have seen what his training philosophy and his personality can do for a horse. I would take an unstarted horse to him as well. It is simply breath taking to see a horse give so much trust and faith. You just have to see it to believe it!
-Kristi A. Swenson