Horseback Riding Lessons Guide » Natural horsemanship

How many people practice natural horsemanship?

admin — Sun, 30 May 2010 13:55:55 +0000

I do Parelli and I love it, but I was just wondering how many people here use it, if you do practice Natural horsemanship what program do you use?

I use Parelli and love it (so do the horses)!

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Natural horsemanship gift ideas?

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 07:50:41 +0000

My friend is into Parelli, Monty Roberts and that kind of thing. Her birthday is soon, any gift ideas? Perhaps there are displays on that we could get her tickets for? Our budget is £35. Thanks
Just to add, we’re in the North East England

Here are some dates for Monty Roberts demos in England. They are £25 per ticket.
http://www.intelligenthorsemanship.co.uk/content/view/49/99/

You could also buy some supplies for her. A nice new rope halter and lead would be nice.

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I am working on training my young mare and I am interested in Natural horsemanship techniques.?

admin — Wed, 12 May 2010 06:22:51 +0000

I want to try out some of the Natural horsemanship stuff but I do not know much about it. I know what the idea is, but I don’t know any techniques. If anyone has any techniques to try out or good books/websites to recommend I would really appreciate it!

The best book you could ever read if you want to learn about natural horsemanship is "True Horsemanship Through Feel" by Tom Dorrance. It comes at horsemanship and horse training from the perspective of partnership and common sense as opposed to gimmicks and trick training, which is a lot of what you see with more heavily marketed programs. The author writes about how to create a more thinking, well balanced horse by working with the horse’s nature as both a herd animal and an individual. Many of today’s successful systems are based heavily off of his techniques. It’s a pretty foundational system that is more about gentling than about breaking.

NH is more about applying the philosophy to everything you do with your horse than it is about teaching your horse certain movements. In my experience, it’s mainly about respecting the horse and treating him/her as another thinking, feeling being . It’s kind of like buddhism in that, it’s not necessarily its own religion (or discipline, since we’re talking horses). It can be applied to anything you do with you horse, and like buddhism, just adds a deeper level of understanding for the horse and the rider.

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How to retrain my horse using natural horsemanship?

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 05:33:30 +0000

My 6 year old develops awful manners throughout the winter months due to the fact that we do not have an indoor to use him in. I am looking to retrain him using Natural horsemanship because that is what he was brought up with. Can anyone point out some good Parelli or other videos to watch?

From personal first hand experience the Parelli system can make your horse nervy, head shy, not cope in stressful situations, pushy.

I will get bagged out for saying this, but I would never touch a Parelli horse again. They swing a lead rope at the horse to get it to move away quickly, if it does not respond quick enough then it will get hit with the rope. Now you have a horse who moves away quickly and becomes nervous and jumpy that they will then be punished.

So what I’m left with is a horse who won’t stand still and runs away when you approach them? I can’t make much sense out of it. This horse was not taught by DVD’s, he actually attended 2 years of Parelli certified instruction courses and was in level 3.

I like Monty Roberts methods and I also like Clinton Andersons methods. While DVD’s are better than nothing, be careful about handing out hundreds of dollars for a system that does not give you a well rounded teaching method, such as Parelli. Nothing will beat the great instruction you will get hands on from a good mentor, if you have one near you

This is a link to a disturbing video that shows the Parelli techniques and has a bit more of my story in my answer.
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aq9_ynjXjdXssXHNAXdlONi4HBh.;_ylv=3?qid=20100312215732AA7svBx

All I will say is take a good look at several methods and look beyond the "puff" of advertising gimmicks before making a large investment in these DVD’s. I know 1 person out of all my horse friends who swears by it, but no other people can handle her horse. He needs to be handled with specific methods or the horse is in a constant battle for the leadership.

Good luck with your fellow

*** ADD – @ horsemadangel –
The horse I purchased was trained ONLY by certified Parelli instructors – are you implying they don’t know what they are doing, since Mr. Parelli himself travels here and certify’s them?

The video I have linked to does not lie. What I wrote above is MY personal experience with Parelli and I am happy for you to disagree with me.

However please explain the video to me and help me understand why, it was necessary for her to treat the horse in such a manner. He stood and gave his attention to her several times for short snippets. In a clinic situation like that, those small pieces of GOOD should have been picked up and rewarded.

It is like dealing with a child, they have short attention spans and are excited by new places. You don’t teach advanced mathematics in the middle of a shopping centre because it is distracting and hard to concentrate.

So I feel the horses should have been asked to pay attention and then rewarded on any of the many times he stood still and looked at her. If she had acted quicker in her praise the situation would not have dragged on and became ridiculous.

Please justify the method used here so perhaps we can all understand.

I purchased a level 3 Parelli horse only 2 months ago, because I thought it would be good. So I’m not a Parelli basher from way back! But I have been left absolutely astounded at the behaviour of this horse. Then even more disgusted the more I have researched and discovered about these methods.

Oh and by the way, I have not even given you a TD, because that is your opinion! Can you say the same? ;-(

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admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 04:27:40 +0000

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What do people dislike about Parelli natural horsemanship?

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:11:47 +0000

Try and be at least somewhat rational in your answers….
It seems like most of you are against Parelli, and I just want to know why.
It seems to me that when the techniques are done correctly, without the use of pain, force, or fear to get what you want….they can’t really go wrong.
Besides, if it was as awful as it’s made out to be…no one would use it, and they certainly wouldn’t get the kind of results that they do. Right?
I just want to understand the reasoning.
Thanks!

My biggest problem with Parelli is that they are no longer concerned about the horse, but about making money. It turned from a fairly decent training regimen into a money machine. My next biggest problem is the idea of your horse being your "friend." This in and of itself is dangerous. Your horse doesn’t want to be your equal – that’s not the way it works in nature; horses use a hierarchy and live by it. They need a consistent leader (you). Being your horse’s "friend" puts you in a dangerous position, because if you don’t establish yourself as the top dog, your horse will, and that’s a situation you don’t want to be in.

Another thing is, Parelli does not advocate helmets because (and I don’t remember a direct quote, but it was something along the lines of…) "by the time our trainers are ready to get in the saddle (which is three years, by the way), the horse is so well trained, the rider doesn’t NEED a helmet," which is wrong, wrong, wrong! I’ll admit, I don’t wear a helmet every time I ride, but to flat out say, "nah, you don’t need one" is just messed up.

I’ve worked with three horses trained by "Parelli Instructors", and every single one of them has been ruined. Case No. 1: Diamond. My instructor’s mare was sent of to a 4 star certified Parelli instructor, because my trainer was pregnant with her first child and was too far along to start the mare. When Diamond came back, she was spooky, would not let anyone near her in the field, attempted to climb out of the round pen, and only feels comfortable around people when they’re on the other side of her stall. Case No. 2: Friday – MY horse. He was trained by a local woman who is NOT certified Parelli before I bought him. He seemed okay, but he’s extremely hard to train, always looks around under saddle, ignores you, get frightened immensley by whips and crops, will not lounge at all without throwing a fit. Case No. 3: Spiderman – a walking horse trained by a Parelli follower (I’m not sure if they were certified or not). Spiderman was afraid of you if you waved your arm. Would not be caught in the field, and bolted at the slightest movement of your body (but was okay with tarps and hula hoops, at least!). I had to retrain him for a university class, and it was a nightmare. By the end, we found trust in eachother, unfortunately the person who bought him suffered from a broken leg caused by Spidy, and I think, but don’t know, that he was sent to slaughter.

On the flip side, I saw a young Parelli enthousiast train a horse at the same university with a mixture of Parelli and cowboy techniques, and he turned out beautifully. Just, I’ve not had good experiences with Parelli. Maybe I just got to know the three worst Parelli-trained horses ever, but it seems like an odd chance that the only three I know are basically crazy.

EDIT: Also, I know for a FACT that Parelli doesn’t always abide by his own techniques. He came here for a clinic and I saw him behind the arena working with his stallion. Instead of being passive when he misbehaved (which is what he preaches), he got onto the stallion and shanked him and gave him proper discipline. That, to me, justifies the fact that he doesn’t care about what he tells people as long as he gets paid.

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Devils advocate – natural horsemanship vs traditional?

admin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 07:13:39 +0000

We’ve had this discussion on the board many times and it is assumed that horses broken or trained by any method other than "natural" is cruel and harsh and that Natural horsemanship trainers are demi-gods with followers happy to throw $$$ at them to listen to their pearls of wisdom while the rest of us wallow in the darkness of the uninformed and unlightened.
Here’s several articles that I’d like to share and that you might want to consider before you part with those hard earned pennies!

http://citizensforjustice.org/monty/carradine_lawsuit_pg2.html

http://citizensforjustice.org/monty/aussiefraud.html

http://citizensforjustice.org/monty/montypmu.html

http://thesecondsight.blogspot.com/2006/06/unnatural-horsemanship-2.html
Hand Full – with comments like that, anyone would think that you was my husband – fortunately you are not!
If you ride the lawsuit article, he used a TB belonging to someone else for the documentary where he followed that mustang for days. The TB ended up in bad shape and a broken leg – now that’s what I call a horseman – NOT!

Never had much truck with it myself, I honestly consider it a fad and a moneyspinner. Anyone who actually spends time with their horse is going to develop a relationship with it without spending a fortune on "carrot sticks" and pieces of rope.
Only 2 people I knew had anything to do with this, one was the owner of a horrible miserable horse on a livery yard – he’d bite as soon as you looked at him unless you watched your back – obviously it was doing him a lot of good.
The other one attempted to demonstrate "joining up" to us with a 4 year old loony in our jumping paddock, luckily there’s a fence around the tree in the middle and we were able to rescue her a short time later !
In a best case scenario I think it’s a case of "no harm done" but on the other hand how many accidents have gone unremarked upon because we expect people to get injured around horses ?
As for the articles – they do nothing for the credibility of these "stars"

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Good books on like natural horsemanship?

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 07:28:28 +0000

So, I didn’t know what else to classify what I’m looking for as> I was wondering,w hat are some good books that’ll help me learn about stuff like joining up and just things like that? Thanks!
See, I’d do DVD stuff, but I don’t have the $100 or so dollars to shell out on DVDs

Joe Camp’s book "The Soul of a Horse" talks a lot about join-up. I have Clinton Anderson’s Down under Horsemanship book and it lays everything out step by step, but it’s sort of boring. I personally like Parelli best because they do a better job of explaining why the horse does what it does, but they do more with DVDs than books. If you’re getting into Natural horsemanship, getting your hands on anything related to equine behavior is a great place to start.

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admin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:32:24 +0000

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Does anyone have anything negative to say about Parelli natural horsemanship?…?

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:13:35 +0000

I’ve heard lots of great things about this method of training, and I’m very interested to join the savvy club, but is it really as great as it appears to be? (I have trained in other ‘Natural’ horsemanship methods and found some of them to be dogmatic and downright abusive to the horse)…

The only draw back I’ve seen is people who only grasp half the concept and let their horses walk all over them, sometimes literally. As long as you realize it’s not about sweet talking them into every thing but communicating in a fashion they can understand it’s a great program. Good luck if you try it.

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