What is Warwick Schiller's position on using a butt rope to load a horse?

Warwick Schiller has addressed the butt rope — a technique where a rope is looped around the horse's hindquarters and used by a second handler to provide pressure from behind, essentially preventing the horse from backing away — in the context of his broader thinking on training methods and nervous system regulation. His position is nuanced and reflects the evolution in his training philosophy over the past several years. Schiller acknowledges that a butt rope is a mechanical solution that works in the short term — it physically prevents the horse from backing away, which means it will eventually end up in the trailer simply because there is nowhere else to go. He does not call it cruel or categorically wrong. However, his concern is what the horse has actually learned when the session ends, and whether the method addresses the root cause of the resistance. A horse loaded with a butt rope has learned that it cannot back away, which is different from learning that the trailer is safe. The anxiety driving the resistance is not addressed — it is simply overridden mechanically. Schiller's documented observation is that these horses often load reluctantly for years, tolerate the process under duress, and never develop the genuine willingness that makes long-term trailering safe and low-stress. For a horse that needs to be moved urgently — a veterinary emergency, for example — Schiller would not object to using a butt rope as a one-time practical solution. For training purposes, he advocates for taking the time to address the underlying anxiety rather than bypassing it, noting that a few extra hours invested in genuine confidence-building produce a horse that loads willingly for the rest of its life rather than a horse that tolerates the trailer indefinitely.