The other day I mentioned in this post that I had listened to a Horses in the Morning podcast episode in which Mary K Kitzmiller answered my written question about trailer loading. She had great advice and helped me figure out where to go with Odin, which I practiced yesterday. She also had some great not-to-dos about which I immediately felt guilty but then realized that now that I know better, I will do better.
One thing MKK said was that if he doesn't want to get in the trailer, don't punish him by making him move his feet. Remembering back to a recent session where O didn't want to get in the trailer when I did ask him to move his feet, I felt guilty. And he did get in the trailer and we got to go for a trail ride that day. He also got back in the trailer after the trail ride without any fuss.
Thinking back, I wasn't punishing him by asking him to move his feet. He was kind of rattled by the training (I had him over threshold, which is not the goal) so I allowed him to move his feet in a safe place away from the trailer and I wanted him to move his feet in a way that wasn't just running around and bucking. I wanted him to engage his brain rather than feel like he was running away from A Scary Thing so I asked him to change directions, jump up a little terrace, and when he was ready I asked him to transition down to a walk then halt. My goal was to make sure he was with me and listening to my cues.
My next goals are to work with him in such a manner that he doesn't go over threshold, so that we don't have to move his feet. I may ask him to move his feet in order to make sure he's paying attention to me and can follow simple cues such as move your shoulder, move your haunches, be soft in the rib cage but I think that most R+ (positive reinforcement) trainers would agree that doing a little ground work now and then to check in is good horsemanship.
Here's a 54-second video of my R+ work with O on Saturday.