This is almost too easy
Mar 09 2010
NOTE: I apologize for this morning’s technical difficulties. I still do not know WHY they happened, nor does my web host. I complained at 7 AM and my complaint was routed to the wrong department, which my web host admits to as their error. They fixed it very quickly when I called again. Linda Parelli does NOT have the power to take this blog down. If my web hosts were wimps, it would have gone down three years ago. In the event that they do ever get scared off of hosting the blog, there are many “free speech” web hosts including offshore ones to help me out. The blog is backed up in full daily and there will NEVER be ANY way to make it disappear forever.
Deal.
Now, again, this is a video of Linda Parelli working with a horse. Which I am now going to leave up for at least one extra day just on the off chance that some asshat disciple of hers hacked me! I will note that this is also a horse who is blind in one eye.
Heck, where do I even begin? Her body’s in the wrong place most of the time. Why the fuck is she turning her back to the horse like that? And the ducking thing? If she had a longe whip and an actual longe line she wouldn’t have a horse nearly on top of her. Why do these morons do all those constant rollbacks on the longe line? Let the poor horse go forward for a while and maybe it wouldn’t be so pissed off and confused. Why is the longe line LYING on the ground like that? That is an accident waiting to happen! Why are you flapping your elbows like a brain damaged chicken, you twit?
“Humane Horseman of the Year” – sorry, HSUS, that was a HUGE fail. HUGE. This is nothing more than someone really fucking up a horse to the point where someone competent is going to have one hell of a time ever fixing it.
Shit, I could do a whole blog on the plague that is Parelli. It just never ends.
Linda, you suck. Seriously, seriously, seriously suck. You trying to teach other people about good horsemanship is like Tiger Woods trying to teach other people about monogamy.
It just popped into my head that someone could have taken video of me longeing the VLC in public recently. And you know what, I’d be perfectly fine if that video showed up on the Internet. You would have seen a calm, well behaved young horse longeing quietly in a very crowded warm-up ring. A time or two he got distracted by all the activity and stopped. I just gave him the noise – you know the noise, the you’re-doing-something-wrong noise – stepped meaningfully toward his hip and he got going again.
Oh, wait, that’s why my horse likes me…
Really, Linda, it is not that damn hard to longe without pissing off and confusing the horse. Did you need some lessons? Come on by, maybe I can help you and Pat out with it! 
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Ugh, I can’t watch it again. How can anyone be deluded to think this is anything other than atrocious? HSUS said she was ‘humane’ ? Disgusting.
As with every trainer, I think there are some things the Parellis do that are quite useful, and others that I wouldn’t try. But I have seen similar situations with Clinton Anderson and other natural horsemanship trainers. Yes, I do own a Carrot Stick and a rope halter from Parelli, but I also own a rope halter from Clinton Anderson. However, just because I own some of their equipment does not mean I worship them lol. I would like to see the whole video that this clip came from because if a horse was getting into my space and I couldn’t get it to listen, I wouldn’t have a problem with making the snap on the lead pop the horse in the jaw. Horses do a heck of a lot worse to each other in the pasture when they are asserting dominance. However, I also agree that this horse has to be viewed a little differently due to its visual impairment. Again, watch many people, and find the things you would or wouldn’t do, and move on. Even if what you learned is something you would NEVER want to try and you think is ridiculous, you still learned something; you learned what not to do.
I agree with this wholeheartedly; but, see my post below. I’ll allow that I don’t know the whole story here, but I don’t think I would find this particular clinic useful for me, and I’ve said why below. I am also a slower learner at this and I myself would need more concise instruction than I am seeing given here. I was taught in what I feel is a much more understandable way, and I feel my horse benefited greatly from it.
I am SO not a Parelli fan. I saw this video a few days ago and was horrified. It would be less creepy if they were not so disciple like in their worship.
I will say, however, that I LOVE my carrot stick, although I bought a generic one at the tack store.
I tend to be rather uncoordinated in general, and the first time I tried to use a dressage whip with my horse, I smacked him with it by accident! The carrot stick is much safer for both me and my horse!
You mean you love your crop or whip? “Carrot Stick” is a gimmicky name given to an ordinary dressage whip with an extra long twitch at the end that is orange. This product in particulate drives me nuts, because you can (and have always been able to) buy the same damn thing under its proper name for like $10.
I have two carrot sticks that I keep in the trailer for loading. One is also known as a halter whip (kinda like Dressage but longer). The other one is sometimes called a broom.
Quick, paint your broom neon blue, stick a brand name on it, make a slick marketing website and start selling your…… Swishstick for $100 as the next magical training device.
Maybe “stick and string” is more accurate. Whatever it is, it’s easier for me to wield without causing injury to me or my horse!
WTF this looks like a temper tantrum …that poor horse! and WTF is the owner thinking allowing this shit…like seriously I can’t believe she was actually hitting that horse in the face…i wonder how she would like that
I’m with you marti I would love 15 min with this trainer now that would be fun.
This is only part of a much longer video. Linda takes the horse after he has intentionaly charged his owner several times. The horse would just try to run him over.
Then the first thing I would have picked up is a longe whip…before I took the lead.
I’ve dealt with chargers. They are not hard to fix. Once or twice, bam, and they realize that on top of you is not a good place to be. You have to watch them like a hawk, because some will wait for a moment of inattention and then take another dive at you. But all in all, I could have fixed this with one or two good whacks with a whip – at the CHEST as he dove at me – NEVER at the face – and the horse would not have been confused, and it would have been over a lot faster.
This is a good example of “picking at” a horse. Instead of making a simple point, once, and making it clear what behavior was not acceptable, it’s a thousand annoying little pinpricks to the horse.
Gee, I got charged once by a young thoroughbred colt, while I was trying to get him out of a sand roll. One belt to the nose meant he never charged me again. There’s no consitency and no moment when the horse isn’t being mucked about with here.
That is PATENTLY UNTRUE. The owner was working with the horse – more successfully than LP I might add. There was additional video posted on COTH showing this – the owner and then LP taking the leadrope and commencing with her abusive training.
Absolutely NOT. The horse was not charging. It tended to crowd its owner since it lost sight in one eye. I just want to SMACK Linda every time she *attacks* the horse for turning its head to see something with its good eye. And I’ll bet that this horse is seriously hard to catch, after being “trained” to stay 8-10 feet away from the handler.
I got about a minute into this ridiculous video and had to stop watching. I don’t know what in the hell that woman is doing and personally, I don’t care who she shares her bed with at night. She’s an idiot, anyone that thinks that that is an effective training (loosely used term, there) is a moron. And lemme tell ya, if some yay-hoo did that crap to my horse in front of me, I’d kick their junk from here to the next state and back again.
Get a grip. That is crap.
Heh…don’t hold back now, tell us how you REALLY feel!
I just want to comment about “I don’t care who she shares her bed with…” LOL my understanding is that she and Pat live in separate houses, they are only together in name for the sake of the business.
This screams HORSE ABUSE to me… Seriously… what is she trying to do? Looks like all she does is pull, yank, slap the horse… repeat…, with no clear goal??
Poor horse just looks so confused. Why doesn’t she just let him go forward????!!!
I doubt this will make it past our moderator….. I have problems with Linda Parelli too but this bit of video is taken completely out of context–she is not lounging her horse–they don’t lounge– so don’t compaure it to lounging–and I agree with them on lounging–it is a brain dead activity for the horse– they are bored bored bored and tune out completely. Obviously you have never seen Pat Parelli with his horses–they are amazing–when his program is done properly, ( in my HO–of which there are very few HO on this blog!)—the horse uses his intelligence and is very connected with his handler..but of course no one will see this…
Where does this idea come from that I delete posts that don’t agree with me? I could count the posts I have ever deleted without running out of fingers, and usually I warn people and say, hey come up with something new, you don’t get to say the same thing 10 times. Everybody gets their say here. And everybody gets to respond to their say.
Any activity can be a brain dead activity for the horse… it depends how you work with it… My horse isn’t bored with working in the dressage ring, or when I lunge him… You don’t have to do NH stuff for your horse to like its work and be connected to their handler/rider… my opinion.
Then since you seem to understand it Adjani, explain to us exactly what the fuck this is because all I see is yank, yank, yank, slap on the butt and yank, slap on the butt and yank, hit the horse on the face (no doubt on its blind side). Bitch is lucky the horse didn’t just up and realize that if it wanted to he could crush her into bits.
LMAO what do you call that then? A game? I don’t want to play that game, thank you!
If you put your horse on a lunge line and ask them to go in circles yeah, it’s boring. But when you put a pair of side reins on them, make them go FORWARD to seek the bit, get their hind end moving and possibly put down some ground poles it’s not quite so boring.
Then there’s the fresh horse on a warm spring day so I’m going to put him on the lunge line to buck up into the rafters BEFORE I get on…
Lounging your horse is NOT a brain dead activity. Is walking your dog on a leash a brain dead activity? Exercise is exercise and considering horses should be traveling MILES a day, any and all exercise is good. I am more of a dog person and I use a treadmill for my mutts since I have over 10 “problem” rescue dogs at any one time who just had alot of frustration from being cooped up. Of course they learn tricks and go off leash in the bush to stimulate their minds but not before the edge is taken off. Their new homes all understand the absolute NEED for so called “brain dead” movement to keep them calm and collected the rest of the time and make them sane pets. I cannot see it being much different in horses.
It is not taken out of context. The owner was working with is horse, LP took the lead and proceeded to abuse the horse. What does that have to do with longing?
First of all, the term is LONGE or LUNGE not ‘LOUNGE’. To lounge is to recline, be lazy, not accomplish anything much. What I see in the video is neither longing nor lounging.. and call it what you will, the mindless circles done by the parelli-ites I know…. you know the kind of circles.. the ones where you stand and face the same direction, and let that LONGE line pass over you as your arm makes ‘lasso’ movements? — that IS a form of longing…. Parelli must have given it a different, more savvy term!
There are many things Parelli has ‘personalized’ for the sake of his marketing (or HER marketing, perhaps) that are very old-school humane tools that sensitive, wise, and effective horsemen/women have used since humans domesticated horses. What bothers me is that the Parelli-ites know these tools by no other name but ‘savvy’ and behave as though each Parelli tool is new, amazing, and those who haven’t taken a horse through the ‘levels’ is an unenlightened moron. That is proselytizing, and when the minions begin to proselytize, I turn OFF my receptors and go to my ‘happy place’ and think about REAL horsemanship, real communication, purposeful activity with my horses (one of which really, really likes longe line work.. the other prefers lounging)
I believe that Pat Parelli, with Linda’s agressive marketing and business plans, has done some things that help those who have no other tools find a way to work with their horses. Unfortunately, many only hear part of the message of his horsemanship… some seem to hear only part of it, and understand even less.
The link to this video was posted to a dressage group (on yahoo) which I follow pretty closely, and Thomas Ritter, artisticdressage.com, whose work I HIGHLY respect had some very interesting and tactful things to say about the work being done in the video. What I saw, an as verified by him, is a woman whose releases are inconsistent.. she rewards the right thing with more wild leadrope-shaking and the wrong thing with sighs of longsuffering. I imagine the horse was totally discombobulated about what was expected — even if the horse DID charge it’s owner, such treatment teaches nothing except “If you cannot GUESS correctly how to behave I will punish you until you figure it out”. That is not training – it is torture.
I cannot help but think of the mantra of at least one other TRULY natural horseman “Be as soft as you can be, but as loud as you need to be.” Being ‘loud’, however, is worthless if one is screaming in gibberish.
Well, good, I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought the releases, and much of the technique, was inconsistent. I also thought her hand did not lead like it should when sending the horse off in one or another direction. I was taught that even before it was “Parellified”. If I tell you “go there”, how will you know where to go unless I point it out in some manner?
Thank you walkonaire for addressing the “lounge” issue with hilarious wit. You rock!
I never heard of Parelli before this blog, but saw lots of this whacked behaviour with the horsey folks around here and wondered WTF was going on. In my limited experience with Parelliites, the followers are relative newbies to horses and are attracted to the “magic” and “horse-whispering” factor. Waving their freaking ropes in their faces to get them to back up. “Lounging” in tiny circles with special ropes, and “crouching” to make the horses stop – oooh, like THAT’S so intuitive for a horse. If you are too stupid to see that your training techniques are resulting in undesirable results (head throwing, legs going in all directions, no balance at all), then WhyTF are you into horses.
Get a train set.
I doubt this will make it past our moderator….. I have problems with Linda Parelli too but this bit of video is taken completely out of context–she is not lounging her horse–they don’t lounge– so don’t compaure it to lounging–and I agree with them on lounging–it is a brain dead activity for the horse– they are bored bored bored and tune out completely.
[Eyeroll] I know it’s been pointed out a few times, but of course lounging is boring for the horse. All that lying on the couch (in lounging pyjamas, perhaps?) and watching daytime TV can’t be good for a horse.
Sheesh, if you can’t even spell it – either the English way or the US way – you can’t have much horsey education, can you.
Well you have a point, i am sure this horse is not bored, it is hard to be bored when you are getting slapped in the face and shanked on for no discernable reason.
Grandma said this is after the horse intentionally charged him
Charged him ? No the horse didn’t intentionally charge him . I’ve seen the video before several times. He doesn’t charge anybody. Charging is ears back coming at you with their heads down . The horse didn’t know how to stand back and stand still.
Christ people its a horse it moves around you put it back and eventually they figure it out.
You know what gets me is that there are all these people doing this training , some do it ok but most over do it to the point of abuse. They talk smack about cowboys and brag about how their horse is on level 3 or whatever, then when they ruin that horse they put this ad out
Wanted : Ranch broke gentle gelding
If she was trying to get him out of her space then why did she say “stay near me” at the beginning? This horse looks like a sweetheart! He stayed near her, got whipped, ran around, jerked to a stop, whipped into action, smacked in the face, slapped on the legs etc etc and for what exactly? She seemed to be pissed that he didn’t look at her the whole time..as in “don’t you KNOW who I am?”. If someone told me to go stand by a tree so they could beat my horse for no reason you’d end up with a much different video.
I think she was telling the poor confused owner of the poor confused horse to stay near her, so she could beat on his horse at leisure without having to worry about tripping on him. I have NO idea what she wanted from the poor horse, and I don’t think she did either. It looked like she started out trying to circle him, but then he did something she didn’t like so she abandoned circling and focused on that, and then he did a different thing wrong so she ditched the old plan and started in on the new issue, etc. while the horse was going “WTF am I supposed to DO?!”
I will be the first to admit that I have a LOT to learn about training, longeing included, and there are a lot of intuitive things that I don’t know if I’ll ever get. But damned if I couldn’t do a better job at it than Linda Parelli!
I believe when she said “stay near me” she was speaking to the horse’s owner… as in “stay near me so when I move the horse he doesn’t run you over.” Then later she decides she needs the owner out of there entirely and asks him to move over by the tree.
She must be taking lessons from some of the Arab halter trainers on how to shank a horse. I can’t imagine what she’d be trying to accomplish handling the horse in the manner she is. There does not appear to be anything positive coming from this interaction.
I spent almost three months taking some pretty intensive lessons with a pretty well known NH trainer years ago (who as far as I know, dropped the “P” out of that title and is now just a Natural Horsemanship trainer) and had my horse in for the same time period for full training with him, and I can tell you that even I am not certain most of the time exactly what it is that she is trying to do here in this video. I followed up with him on several occasions afterwards and have worked with a few other NH trainers too, so I’m not new to this form of instruction. I felt like there are a bunch of things missing here, looking at this demo. She is teaching a clinic here, no? I don’t think she is doing a very good job of explaining anything here, certainly not what I came to expect out of the trainer I used. Maybe it’s just this fragment, but don’t feel like I see any sort of light going on in this horse’s head, like he has been worked with on this before and should know what is going on without breaking it down into a bunch of baby-steps and giving him a chance to proceed with doing the right thing when he starts doing it. I know as the person taking the clinic, I sure would want more explanation and baby-steps for *me* to understand! The guy who trained me talked the whole time and had a very specific and understandable rhythm, and he explained it as he went, so if he went on to another horse, you could watch and say “oh yeah, I know what’s happening now”. If he had to “up the ante” and move quicker with the horse, he explained it after he was done concentrating on what he was doing. My horse went in for help with very specific problems and I felt we both made a lot of headway; I also am pretty sure my trainer did not limit himself to one source for knowledge. I have only a limited grasp of what is going on here and am in no way certain of the ‘why’ involved.
Now don’t flame me..
I do use some NH techniques taught in variation by all the main people out there…
I use the “join up” to help a horse bond with its owner, if they and the horse are new to each other, or to help with some trust issues…
I use the pressure/porcupine game when teaching a young horse to move off of pressure, and use a bit of circling/squeezing when teaching a horse to not be afraid of going into a trailer, ie making them work, and then making the trailer entrance the nice quiet spot.
And the one rein stop as an emergency brake for beginner riders.
I did have to laugh watching clinton anderson chase a young OTTB around a round pen, running out of breath chasing that poor horse around… Dennis Reis uses two ski pole looking things.. He keeps one in the middle that he has to hold onto, and one as a “carrot stick/lunge whip” type .. He keeps himself in the middle so he ain’t chasing that horse around the pen, and can use it as an extension of his hand/arm.
I use a lunge whip and explain it is used as an extension of your leg, but can be used an extension of your arm, to slow the horse if he/she is being free lunged.
I do like to see a horse either stop when lunged and then look at you, or yield his hindquarters, as it does make the horse stop.
I use classic horse training techniques, along with bits of NH stuff, but tiny stuff and only to enhance good ole fashioned, time tested horse training stuff…
I love the Scientolog/Parelli cult cross over!!!
Before Ga Wa Ni (Go on pull my finger) Pony boy.. jumped onto the whole NH bandwagon.. he said, in 1999 that you use what works for you and your horse, the combo of DVD A, book B, and clinc C.. you take what you want from each and use what you want.
What I find sad is that people who are pulled into the cult of NH.. don’t grow, they and their horses don’t grow.
I recently saw on the CL and they were trying to sell a 3rd or 4th level Parelli and couldn’t sell it for under a 1000.. I think her price tag was 800 or less, of course I couldn’t find it today…
I do find it funny that Dennis Reis is trying to do a “world championship” horse competition like very loosely based on Craig Cameron’s Xtreme cowboy race..
He has his top “students/instructors” putting horses through paces of his 3/4 part NH courses in his round pen at his place in California… oooohhh ahhh, the play by play with him MC’ing and being like a sports commentator is pretty hilarious, and sad, since it is about as exciting as watching beige paint dry. ALthough his oldest person competing did win a Craig Xtreme race at one time.. but seeing this poor old lady stumbling after a horse waving a plastic bag on a stick at a horse, to show he is “sacked” out.. he did well, I think she about had a heart attack trying to wave the poor stick/flag at the horse….
LOL
I wouldn’t say that “teaching a horse to move away from pressure” or “circling a horse when it’s scared or being difficult” or a “one-sided rein stop” are NH techniques or are new an innovative. Hello, those are common, long standing training techniques and are just common sense horsemanship. Almost all riding is teaching a horse to move away from pressure. I have always circled a horse that was being too hot or stupid when I was leading it. Horses don’t like to move in circles. Eventually they learn that to go straight they have to stop being stupid. And duh, when your horse has taken the bit pulling its head to one side will get it to stop.
I love how some of the posters call it “lounging.” My horse would love that—stretching out on a deck chair with a mojito in his hoof. But seriously, this thing Linda P. is doing is madness and the horse is just going to get more messed up. Horses must have ground manners, true, but in order to enforce them, WE have to have ground manners ourselves. And that means not getting in an animal’s face repeatedly. And not confusing, bullying, or irritating it.
What in the HELL was happening? All I saw was a deluded old woman slapping, flopping and hopping around on the end of a rope while a horse spun in confusion on the other end.
If the horse was charging into your space, reprimand it when it happens, don’t spend 10 minutes yanking, slapping and magic-hand flicking around its head AFTER the fact.
That is atrocious. There is nothing natural about that. How come I can round pen my horse with just my body? Why don’t people spend $40 a pop per clinic to come see me do that? People are paying ridiculous amounts of money to learn…..what? Yank the shit out of your horse because you’re having a temper tantrum? No thank you!!!!
It seems like several people here are saying that the NH principal is ok, she’s just doing it wrong. Isn’t that like saying “Catholicism is good, but not the way the Pope practices it” (Please understand, I have nothing against the religion, I am just using it as an example)?
Um… no. It’s not like that at all, actually. It’s more like saying, “Dressage is okay, but the way Anky practices it is abusive.” Just because somebody out there (or a lot of somebodies) is failing with it doesn’t make the whole idea invalid. Hell, NH itself is mostly just a collection of older techniques from more “traditional” schools of horsemanship.
I agree – there’s nothing NEW about it. 30 years ago, we knew we had to be the alpha or we were gonna have hoofy-prints on our backs.
It’s all marketing, packaging and unfortunately, it’s laced with a seriously deep thread of bullshit.
What it comes down to for me is this: There was absolutely nothing wrong with traditional horsemanship and traditional training. It did not need to be fixed or improved upon. Were there some jerks that needed to stop training? Sure. They still exist. Only now some of them use Natural Horsemanship, as can be seen in this video.
My main problem with NH is this: It has a culture which discourages people from improving their riding skills. You hardly ever (yes, I know, a few people do it – Chris Cox, I think) hear a NH’er say “ma’am, the horse is fine – you need to improve your seat and develop a stronger leg.” Instead, they tell you that playing this game or that game will develop some kind of magical “bond” with your horse. Do you know what an actual bond comes from? RESPECT. Horses, much like women, walk all over you if they perceive you to be a wimp. They do not love you for it. They may love carrots but they don’t go “wow, this person is so nice to me, I won’t run back to the barn with her any more!” That’s just not how the equine mind works and selling that idea is misleading tomfoolery. Your horse needs to think “wow, I’d like to go back to the barn but I know I can’t, ’cause the last time I tried I just got hauled in a circle and made to chase my tail and really, it wasn’t much fun and I didn’t wind up back at the barn any sooner.” And you can’t BE that confident rider who simply pulls the barn sour horse in a circle and sends it on in the direction YOU want to go unless you’re a good, solid competent rider.
Which takes lessons…and work without stirrups…and that hurts…and makes you sweat…and boy, you have to get off the couch and away from the DVD player and maybe, gasp, get a bit more fit to do it.
Lots of people aren’t interested in buying the truth!
And this is why I take lessons. Lots and lots of lessons.
My horse used to enter my bubble, but now I can back him off with a raised eybrow. And he waits in the goodie corner for his grain like a gentleman, because he knows that it’s my grain until I give to him.
I’d say that it’s more like saying “Christianity is good but televangelism, although they sometimes say and do the right things, is mostly a scam.” All that is Natural Horsemanship is not Parelli; he’s just the most visible part of it.
By the way, my cat was watching this video with great interest- maybe She understands what Linda is trying to accomplish?
Well, I have used the hand-in-the face thing before, mostly when I’m feeding and getting horses that seriously invade my space. Had a Parelli-fanatic friend recommend it to me (actually told me to flap my elbows at them like a chicken!), but it seemed to work a lot better than when I used to slap them on the shoulder to get them off of me. The flinging the lead line at them might work with some insensitive horses to get them to back up, but using it on a hot, sensitive TB or sport horse, is just going to lead that horse to have major head-flinging problems. Other than that one technique (the chicken arms and I know it looks absurd) – I am not a Parelli fan, and its laughable that they think longing is a mindless activity. Longing is a great activity–allows the horse to carry himself correctly (when longed with correctly adjusted side reins, ) get used to tack, and to find his own balance without carrying a rider who also has an assortment of training issues and baggage to resolve (let’s face it – we all have areas in which we can improve and our balance definitely effects the horse’s). Of course, longing is more of a classical training technique (which has been used and had been effective for hundreds of years) and not popular with most NH trainers – different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Okay…so I’m going to raise my hand here and say that I use natural horsemanship with my horse. If I move towards my horse’s shoulder and he doesn’t move away from me THEN I give him a whack with the end of the lunge line. I’m big mamma horse, you give me my space.
And I’m watching this video going WTF? My husband was watching it with me (he had “a” lunge lesson with my horse once) and even HE knows that it’s messed up. What exactly is she trying to get the horse to do?
And of COURSE we ALWAYS want our horses as hollow in the back as possible so they stick their front end down to China…oh, wait, ground work transfers to under saddle work and that’s the OPPOSITE of what you want.
Even my super extra crappy trainer didn’t have anything nice to say about having the horse’s head flying up in the air to get them to go backwards. Moron. Didn’t she ever think of walking TOWARDS the horse and getting after him for not backing up? *sigh*
Geeze – how to make your horse head-shy 101!
I’m all for the “natural horsemanship” when applied properly (taught my mare some AMAZING ground work before she was backed) but this is just moronic.
Ugh, someone apparently doesn’t realize there is a HUGE difference between good groundwork and abuse! That is so horrible to watch >_<
WTF is she trying to accomplish? Even I am confused so I can’t imagine what is going through that poor horses head. The entire process looks like it is driven out of aggression and a complete misunderstanding of “horse language”. I can’t even imagine that any true horseperson would think this is right.
I had someone tell me once that since I can ride one of our mares without using the reins, she must be either Parelli trained or NH trained. I gagged.
I also tell the girls when they’re working with the horses that if the horse doesn’t do what the girls ask/tell them to, then the girls aren’t giving them a clear signal, that they’re confusing the horse. Case in point: when they rode the above mare, they wanted to go left but the mare would stop, because the girls may have been turning the reins to the left, but their bodies said something else. So the mare was confused and did what she thought would keep from getting yanked on. She stopped.
That horse is a saint. I kept waiting for it to plow over her but it didn’t. Our horses respect personal space (new mare doesn’t yet, but she’s getting better) but if pushed like that horse was, they’d probably forget their training and push me out of the way to get away.
How could you do that to a horse I am not a trainer but have worked with my own horses a great deal. If anyone tried that with one of my horses I would beat the crap right out of them. Most of what I saw was uncalled for and just mean, I was alwasy told to have patience with an animal any animal. She is the reason people get stomped it looked like she wanted the horse to jump on her back.
You know, I’ll grant you that this is far from being Linda’s finest moment. It’s also taken completely out of context — when I originally watched this, which if I remember correctly is a segment from their Level 2 DVD set, I don’t remember thinking, “Wow, she’s being horribly ineffective there, nice job at failing.” So what that could tell is that a) it’s useful to get a different perspective on yourself by watching videos of somebody working a horse from the middle of the session and/or b) that you don’t actually know how this event began or ended, so you’re not really seeing the full picture. Bearing both of those things in mind, it’s easy to draw two common-sense conclusions: that it would be wiser to reserve judgment
I understand the animosity toward the Parellis. I honestly do. I’ve met those people who treat it like a religion and who don’t even understand the concepts that they’re trying to implement, and I know they can be irritatingly holier-than-thou in claiming that their methods are correct to the exclusion of all others. (Rather like all of the comments to this post, actually.)
I also know that what I’ve learned from Parelli videos has taken my horsemanship to another level. I know that when I worked in rescue, we used Parelli techniques (and techniques very similar to theirs) very effectively and humanely with hundreds of horses, most of them wild. As a private trainer I’ve used similar and identical techniques to train horses that bigger names than me — both “traditional” and “natural horsemanship” trainers — have condemned to the meat truck. The horses I train come out the other side soft, willing and very respectful, all without any sort of abuse. So while I respect and can learn from the techniques used by folks who reject natural horsemanship methods, I hope you can all understand that it’s a little disheartening to see comments here that essentially call me a cultist, an animal abuser, and a miserable excuse for a human being because the Parellis and I have a training method in common.
There is good in NH. But there is *never* any moment that suggests it is a good idea to LASH the horse in the hindquarters, and then *instantly* yank his head off because he responds by actually moving forward from the crude cue you just gave him to do so. AT NO POINT. Look at the horse’s breathing by the end of this session — that is not a horse who has learned anything but to “freeze” and shut down.
The middle is no different from the beginning and the end. she obviously loses her temper — and at that point, any *real* natural horsemanship person will WALK AWAY. You cannot get to a good end through an abusive middle. Just doesn’t work that way.
Watch it again: Do you honestly think that horse has learned anything good? Do you honestly think he has either trust or confidence in the woman throwing a hissy fit at him? Look at the TENSION in him at the end.
The real principles of NH are very useful and very good for the relationship between human and horse. This bears no resemblance to any of them. It’s not about jumping on the Parellis. It has nothing to do with the person hitting this horse in the head — it could be ANYONE. It would still be wrong.
I disagree, but I think I’m going to disagree with pretty much everybody here on this one.
I mean, there are things the Parellis do that I think are just ineffective and/or stupid, and I don’t think this was a great example of the kind of work they do. I did watch it again, and here’s what I saw: the horse doesn’t respond to pressure. At all. Linda asks him to back, and he ignores the pressure or moves into it. He is nervous and unable to stop moving his feet. Linda asks him to back and stop moving his feet. He doesn’t. When he moves, she tries to put him back again and get him to stop moving. When she’s hitting him on the butt with the rope, she’s trying to get him to yield his hindquarters, not move forward, which is why she’s checking with the lead line. She doesn’t do either very well. She is NOT lunging this horse or in any way asking him to lunge, so I’m not sure why everybody is jumping on her “lunging” technique, but whatever.
Did Linda do a good job with it? No. She should’ve stopped very early on and gotten her hands on a carrot stick, because she needed the stick to be more effective in her communication, and it would’ve led to her being much less emphatic and repetitive with the rope. (Or maybe she should’ve just stopped and called Pat.
) She also needed the stick to be more clear when asking him to yield his head, because she’s not tall enough and he’s too tall for her to properly do what she’s trying to do. When I first watched this, I do recall wondering whether that was her first time working with a half-blind horse, because she didn’t seem entirely certain on how to account for his blindness.
But did she scar the horse for life? No. Did she make him headshy? No. I’ve used that same technique — much more gracefully, mind you — to teach countless horses to yield their forequarters. It’s part of teaching them to lead and to yield to you, and it’s no more than a tap on the cheek… even with the hardest cases, a good bump with the heel of the hand is more than enough. And what I’m seeing here isn’t Linda beating the horse in the face. She’s ineffective, but that doesn’t exactly make her a monster.
At the end of the video, there actually *is* a change: the horse is able to stand. He’s not exhausted, and I wouldn’t say he’s “frozen” at all. He appears less nervous than he began and doesn’t feel the need to constantly move his feet. He actually puts his head down of his own accord. When she asks him to back or yield he’s doing it instead of completely ignoring the pressure. It’s not huge progress, but it is progress.
I’m sure my fellow commenters will now write me off as a moron, but I see nothing worse here than a trainer letting a situation get a bit out of control, which happens to everybody now and again. I can’t really believe the amount of histrionics in these comments; you’d think everybody else just watched a video of Linda gutting a horse and eating its heart. And I thought NH people were hysterical about what *they* consider to constitute “abuse”…
You know… I’ve never lounged a horse. I’ve not seen a lot of it. But I’m very certain it was all wrong. As I was watching the video, I didn’t even understand what she wanted from the horse! How could the horse know? Anytime he went forward he was hit, when he turned around he was, when he stopped… what the hell was he supposed to do? I couldn’t even watch it all the way through. I don’t understand why she had to keep hitting him with the line or pop him in the face with her hand. I never did that to my horse, even when he was being a pill. Normally he was being a problem because I was doing something wrong. I wasn’t letting him know what I wanted, and he would get frustrated.
That was painful to watch.. Perhaps if they spent less time trying to “awe the masses” , and actually learn how to train a horse, they might be more productive. Its all gimmicks and show biz. I am a performance trainer, I could give a rats rump whether my horse can do tricks when I wiggle my finger at him, but he better be able to move forwards and use himself when asked.
To who ever it was that said “longing is pointless” , this is only true if you’re not doing it right. Longing teaches the horse MANY things…it teaches respect for space, how to move forwards, voice cues, how to stop, how to move with a saddle on, how to move with the bridle on, add side reins it teaches a horse how to balance and carry themselves, it builds balance and fitness so the horse is capable of carying a rider. It teaches transitions both up and down, it teaches collection. Horse in the “High School” are taught all of their exercises on the lines…. so tell the Spanish riding masters longing is pointless.
Letting your horse run around in circles aimlessly with no control certainly is pointless, but I myself do not consider that longing!
Also pointless was what ever this woman is trying to teach that horse….she is not being consistent. In order for a horse to LEARN there has to be consistency, and the horse has to have a release of pressure to LEARN what is the correct thing to do. She looks like an unsure, uncoordinated fool, and I feel bad for the horse.
While we’re talking about how too many stupid people own horses…anyone want to enlighten these people? The fact that no one else has already is a ten on the creepy scale. http://mcgeequarterhorseranch.com/index.php?p=1_2_Stud-horses
Looks like another Warriner’s and a Webster’s need to go out Overnight Critical to Colorado, among the very least…and that’s just for the website end of things. Yeah.
Aw, c’mon! Don’t be hard on them… Drifter/Driffter is a fast leaner!
Where I come from, we commonly refer to that as a:
Train. Wreck.
I could not watch this whole video. It was too painful. I have never, never been able to tolerate this women for more than 30 seconds. She has a whiney tone and a nervous laugh that just grates on my whole being. In my household, we use whatever training style works for the horse that we are training. You know sometimes we just make it up as we go. The ultimate goal is to have a safe well trained well adjusted animal. So all of our horses even the little ones are respectful on the ground and the ones of riding age can be ridden by most knowledgable riders. I live in a Parelli pocket with several very active Parelli trained trainers. They built a beautiful state of the art barn with a gorgeous indoor arena. Since we don’t have an indoor arena, we have gone to the nearby Parelli/natural horse man ship barn when the footing is bad in our outdoor arena. They are vey nice and allow us to use their facility for just a small nominal fee. Very hospitable! We love going there because the barn is filled with middle-aged women building relationships with their horses and playing games with their horses. It is great! The arena is never congested. No body rides their horses. They just play games. It is actually very sad to watch and I feel sad knowing that these folks will probably never enjoy riding their horse because they haven’t achieved the right level. You know most need to take basic riding lessons so they develop some strength, balance, and correct timing of their aids. Pretty sad video though…
That’s what it always comes down to for me: Parelli is popular like diet pills are popular. They promise a wonderful, exertion-free way of achieving your goal. Of course, no one actually gets to their goal with either. Trimspa won’t make you skinny while you still stuff yourself with whoppers, and a Parelli DVD won’t make your horse stop bucking if you clench up on his face and hang on with your heels the second it starts because you lack a secure seat.
Most horse misbehavior, if not pain-based, needs to be fixed at the rider level. An unpopular truth!
Has Pat or Linda Parelli responded to this video at all? I read somewhere that it is part of their level one training video, so its had to have been out there for some time. I’m admittedly a noob, but if I ever saw something like that in a basic training course, I’d turn it off and ask for a refund.
This is a free speech blog. So I am going to exercise my right to free speech right now
You are a moron. Lounging has a wide variety of purposes and is a very effective tool when done right. It is not “a brain dead activity for the horse– they are bored bored bored and tune out completely” unless the hand. I imagine that is the reason you feel the way you do about lounging
I’m quite familiar with Parelli, and how its supposed to work in theory. I’ve watched many parelli clinics (I worked at a barn that hosted quite a few, with a supposed “parelli expert” Don Halladay.) The whole thing is a joke. The only thing Pat should be receiving an award for is marketing. Come on, it can’t get anymore obvious! Buy our magic stick and our magic halter and shank and all our books and your horse will be your best friend and would never imagine bucking you off even though your a moron. Lets not forget my personal favorite, the magical speshal parelli saddle which magically corrects all your horses conformation faults when you place it on his back! The saddle which can be all yours for the low low price of $4000! LMAO. They took natural horsemanship (which I am a firm believer in) and added toys and a few little twists to help sell their toys. The savy stick and savy string? ITS A LUNGE WHIP YOU MORONS! The only difference is that its a $40 lunge whip instead of a $12 one. But the savy string comes off you say? ITS A FUCKING PIECE OF ROPE WITH A LOOP ON THE END! I can go buy a piece of fucking rope from the hardware store for $2 and tie a loop at the end myself. I just spent $14 and you spent $40. Who’s the sucker now?
99% of the people who were dumping their money into these clinics were terrified of their horses. Even the ones that sent their horses to professional trainers were still having problems. The horse has their number and they know “all I have to do is give a little crow hop and mommy will get scared and jump the fuck off as fast as she can, and then I get my cookies and massage faster”.
Natural Horsemanship = good. Parellei = Marketing ploy. I will give Pat credit where its due, he’s a mastermind when it comes to marketing, a horseman he is not.
“99% of the people who were dumping their money into these clinics were terrified of their horses.”
Yea, verily!
OMG, thank you. I have been saying this about their stupid “Carrot Stick” forever. I told a Parelli believer that the wasted $300 on a dressage whip – in a stupid orange color at that, and they responded by saying, “It’s orange so you can easily find it if you drop it.” What a lame comeback. Because I often drop my crop and can’t find it.
OMG are ya blind? Does it need to blink like those annoying Christmas lights too???
I’ve never dropped a whip and not been able to find it.
I attended clinics like this years ago and I walked away more confused than the horse. There didn’t seem to be particular thing they were teaching. No topic, no subject, just random crap in the arena with people doings some pretty silly shit. Not one person used any of it after they returned home, ’cause they couldn’t remember what was being taught and for what reason. But boy, they all felt good right after the clinic buying the goodies and patting themselves on the back.
I think it’s more of a human amusement clinic than any to do with the reality of teaching horses. We’ve just run out of shit to come up with and so someone always shows up with more crap to peddle.
I figure it this way. If I can’t figure out what the hell their trying to teach, what chance does the horse have? His/her brain is WAY smaller and focused on two things – food and safety.
I think I am confused as that poor horse regarding what in the world she was trying to accomplish. And that poor horse is a *saint* for putting up with all that smacking and head bopping. And the person she took over from and ordered to ‘get back by the tree’ looked pretty uncomfortable about what was going on.
I watched my stallion behave like a pill today. It was rainy so he didn’t get to go out, there were horses hollering in the barn, he was worked up about the commotion and didn’t want to focus on being a good boy and completing the task at hand (which was learning to pick up the canter from a trot). My trainer was patient; he threw his little fit (which amounted to turning in a tight circle and lifting his front feet off the ground in the semblance of a rear; his ‘battles’ are never very big). My trainer patiently sat it out, and then requested he try again. He got the picture, she never used any force, just quiet confidence that she would always win and it was better for him if he just went along with her wishes.
If my trainer *ever* treated my horse in such a manner, she would no longer be my trainer. No matter how unwilling my horse was deciding to be about work.
What exactly was Mrs. Parelli trying to accomplish in this video? Other than document the torment of a half-blind horse at her hands.
WHY THE HELL is she whacking him in the butt with the line then yanking on his face…that’s the same as the people who kick their horse and yank on their mouth at the same time and wonder why they rear…what a complete daft moron…sheesh…I didn’t think she was that bad
OMG then at the end she’s hitting him pretty much in the face! wow…this makes me sick…she won an award for this shizz??
OMG! I just got this same thing accomplished with my colt last week. My tool: a crop. He had a problem of striking out and crowding my space just walking from one place to another. Every time he got too close tap tap tap, and when he moved away the pressure came off. There were only 2 times when this happened and I even had him trot in hand with me. Both times happened in the beginning of the walk within 2 minutes of each other. After the second time he didn’t do it again and hasn’t done it since. There is no need to do this for 5 minutes to get the point across. Even if the video was taken out of context, my previous sentence still holds true. 5 minutes is ridiculous!
I started working with my stallion at the beginning of the month. Since I got him July 28th, 2009 I have done next to nothing with him. He has been thrown out at pasture to be a horse. Before me he was stuck in a stall all day and a small corral at night. Anyway, his girlfriend still calls for him but not as much and he used to call back and pull on the lead. I had my crop (only for show really) but I gave him things to do. Walk here. Stop. Backup. Walk there. Stop. Walk here. Stop Backup. etc. He has grown bored of our walks and I have started doing in hand trotting. I learned tonight that I should not run with the crop in the hand closest to him he is petrified of it! I wish I knew what happened to him before I got him. Well on second thought, it could be terrible and I don’t want to know. =/ But I fixed his nerves by giving him a job. Linda was not giving that horse a job or a clear indication of what she wanted. I don’t even know what she wanted. At first I thought back up but then she started hitting him to move him forward… that is just too confusing for the horse to understand. Patience is key. I have learned that the hard way.
Munchkin, what disturbs me a great deal is that there are people that think what is shown in that video is kind and a couple of good whacks with a crop are abusive. No, no, and NO. A quick, decisive punishment is NOT abusive. Pick, pick, pick, snap, snap, endlessly, is a lot worse for a horse to suffer through than one or two good hard “no you DON’T” corrections.
>>what disturbs me a great deal is that there are people that think what is shown in that video is kind and a couple of good whacks with a crop are abusive
Why do you ALWAYS say what I think??? The thought of using a crop makes them gasp, but confusing the HELL out a horse in the round pen (or like in this video) when you DO NOT KNOW what you are doing is la la lollipops and rainbows.
LOL I have speshul powerz…can read minds.
Can’t control my damn web host from effing up the blog for almost 12 hours, but the mind reading is good otherwise, LOL!!!
How funny!! I got an email this morning to sign some petition banning the Parelli methods…blah blah blah…
I was not seeing a happy horse, he was way worried and the person on the end of the rope did nothing to reassure that horse that all was OK. I did not like the smacking on the face either.
So, I did not sign the petition and I don’t condone that video. I also am not a fan of the Natural-always-doing-groundwork-never-riding-Horsemanship…..jmho!!
big OOOPs!!
forgot to sign my name!
Carrie Giannandrea
Dances with Horses
Formula One Farms
I train all my horses with Natural Horsemanship methods, and yes there is a TON of ground work I do before i ever get in the saddle, but i have MANY hours in the saddle. I follow Clinton Anderson, his methods make since and work on every horse I have used it on. As for the lunging, I use the 14foot lead rope, which is way easier to have control of the horse to yeild his hindquarters and chane direction than a 30′ lunge line. I threw out my old lunge lines I used before I found CLinton Anderson. SOOO much easier get the ground work completed with the shorter 14′
Yes, but that 14 foot rope can be awfully hard on joints, especially on a large horse. One thing about my trainer was he was not afraid to go straight to the 45 foot lariat, which is…oh my god, wait for it…Level 3 material! Oh no!…with my Level One at the time, but also 18HH and 1800 pound warmblood. It could be coiled on the hand if needed but was there to give the horse necessary space to work, could give a huge amount of correction on his freight train of a self but yet be idle and looser when not needed. And it had enough heft so that I did not need to confuse the issue with the stick. I was dealing with a big, heavy, lazy horse who didn’t like to move, so once he was moving, we let him go to a happy place, which was…just being left alone doing what he was told to do without cues nagging or wagging at him. I personally feel that the stick complicates the lower level groundwork and distracts from your body language, especially when the person learning is starting it out all thumbs to begin with, unless it is needed for defensive purposes. But if that were so, you would hope they’d seek more serious help with the horse.
I have to agree with you as I also follow Clinton Anderson’s methods, not to the extreme but I watch a lot of different people so I can try different things if necessary, and find them to be very successful and non-abusive. I have used the heel of my hand to keep my yearling colt’s head from side-swiping me because he likes to fling his head and use it, but he generally gets the hint after the first or second bop on the cheek. Using that technique has not made him head shy either.
First of all I have to agree with most of the posters here in that I don’t think the method LP is using here is affective but I absolutely do not consider this abuse. Come on people! You have seen what true abuse is and labeling this as abuse is over the top. Ineffective, unprofessional, I’ll give you that, but abuse?
I also lunge my horses and use it for my young ones to knock the edge off before I ride them. I use it for my young ones, I start them at a year and round pen them no longer than 10-15 minutes, to teach them to yield and pay attention to me. I will use it for my older gals if it has been awhile since I have ridden. I don’t get them out there every day and mindlessly run them in circles.
What I don’t understand with some of the purveyors of NH, are the people that stand bent over and then reward their horses when they run up to them. No thanks! I want them facing me and approaching me at a walk only, thank you!
To me this video could be used as a good example of what not to do and honestly I have the ‘horse whispering’ (I am snickering here) neighbor and I have learned more of what not to do from that person than what to do but sometimes that is the best lesson.
I watched this video and was thinking are you kidding me. I agree this video has been chopped but the majority that was shown was poor horsemanship and training. If in fact this horse has a history of “charging” the handler/owner why the heck would you work with a short line and allow this horse up in your face as Linda is demonstrating in this video? If you have a death wish that is one way to fulfill it. Also as FHOTD states, why would you turn your back to the horse.
I trained my now 7 yr old quarter horse using natural horsemanship and during the early stages I had a little trouble with my corrdination and timing; but after watching this performance I was damn good.
Linda, I think you need to take a good hard look at yourself.
What was she trying to accomplish? Making the horse headshy? Was this a secretly shot video? I can’t imagine she’d want anyone seeing that. None of what she did made any sense, I’ve worked with several trainers over my long years, I’ve never seen anything that ridiculous. That video just made me angry and feel horrible for that poor horse, he seems pretty calm and forgiving to put up with that woman’s irrational and sporadic behaviour.
This is abuse. I understand there are times you need to push a horse out of your space, but when the horse is standing completely still several feet away from your “personal space” do you really need to force the horse out so violently? At 2 minutes, 59 seconds, the horse quietly stands. He turns his head at 3 minutes, 4 seconds, presumably because he cannot see what’s going on behind him unless he turns his head around. By 3 minutes, 11 seconds, his head is getting ripped off for his “major” offense. Really? He wasn’t charging at all! His feet weren’t even moving!
To the people saying longeing is boring to a horse, no it is not. If you use it to teach it is not boring, if you use it to let them fly around you like an airplane maybe so. When they are on it they should be doing something not just blindly and boringly trotting around. They should be engaged and learning not bored.
People don’t know how to longe, like I said, lost art. (Is it lunge, longe or lounge lol…i see all 3!!!)
I would agree. My horse loves it, and he’ll walk, trot or canter with a single voice command. It should be engaging and with a purpose. Not a yak session on a Cell phone.
Last year I hired a girl as a race horse groom. I learned that she was a Parelli student, which didn’t mean a thing to me at the time. But, I watched her, asked questions and actually learned quite a few things. This girl had taken the good parts of Parelli teaching and she is one excellent horsewoman! Let her change places with Linda in this video and she would’ve had that horse’s attention and respect in under one minute, and she would’ve used some Parelli techniques to do so.
I guess my point is that you have to use common sense, take the good and use it, learn from the bad and don’t repeat it. The video featured here today is definitely one of those examples of what not to do. Poor confused horse!
WOW. I do not claim to be a master horse trainer but it doesn’t take much to realize that EVERYTHING she’s doing is WRONG. I don’t even know what she wants – I am not buying the attention thing, clearly all of his attention is focused on trying to figure out what the hell she’s asking for! I can’t decide whether she’s criminally incompetent or abusive. I think it’s both.
WHY would you want a horse to come into you every time you took the pressure off of him? I feel like THAT would cause charging better than anything else.
I definitely agree with what most have said above – if she handled my horse like that she’d have to deal with me, and she has absolutely no business teaching people how to train horses.
Thanks for fucking up another one, Parelli. It’s a shame, the horse is clearly kinder than most considering he’s still trying to figure out what she wants and hasn’t tried to kill her yet.
Oh, and I’m not a trainer but with a horse with no prior issues, a couple of smacks with a crop or dressage whip seems to sort most of them out. Believe it or not, they generally don’t hate you forever for doing that.
I know of one “Parelli” person who’s got horses that go out and get ridden, and are well mannered and calm on the ground. I put “Parelli” in quotes because she didn’t learn from Parelli, she learned from someone using a mix of traditional and “new age” horsemanship. There’s a whole group of middle aged people whose horses I rode in high school when I couldn’t afford a horse. Most of them used Clinton Anderson’s methods, Parelli, or the Pony Boy DVDs. Most of them wouldn’t ride their own horses because they were scared of them. The one lady who used a local, hands on trainer was the only one who’s horses were a joy to work with from the moment I met them. The others were all projects that rode better by the time I was done with them (their owners would actually ride them on the weekends!).
I made it through just over two minutes of the video, to where there’s a time cut (I really hope she let him rest there). I recognize some of the movements my friend used, but they were all blown out of proportion. All I could think of was Linda is so confusing the horse in the video I can’t even tell which is his blind side. It looks like she’s having a temper tantrum. I’m all for escalation of aids to get a result, but I’m also fond of saying “you’re the primate, USE YOUR BRAIN!” She never stops to go “hmmmm, perhaps this horse can’t see me, and I should try a method not based on visual cues?” She’s got unclear body posture anyway- half the time I’m not sure if she’s sending him away or drawing him in, and when she is clear, she’s switching between “get away from me” and “turn to me and stop” cues in the course of a second. Personally, the last thing I want from a charger is for them to face me.
It’s a method. It works well for some. They will defend it. It will be abused by others. They will ruin their horses.
I use a rope halter- when I want something harsher than a stud chain. My rope halter puts pressure on the poll, cheeks, nose and chin, depending on how I use it. There’s not a stud chain long enough to hit all those points at once. For really spoiled horses, a yank on the halter will back them out of my space… but for really spoiled horses, I prefer a round pen and a lunge whip so there’s no ropes or halters to hang up on as we sort out the “stay away” and “go that direction” cues.
I also wonder at the “you only need a rope to train your horse” cult. Yes, whips can be abused, but (obviously) you can beat a horse with a rope, too.
I think it’s all based on Ray Hunt and negative reinforcement (make the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult, so that they choose to do what you want), but, at least for this clip, she’s gone to pure punishment trying to force a behavior he doesn’t yet know how to give. It looks like they’re in the middle of a clinic (other horse in the background), which makes me think she’s more worried about getting results in a given time than how that particular horse learns.
The really sad thing is that the horse looks to be trying to get close because he wants sanctuary from all the sudden, unexplained pain when he’s out on the circle. Maybe he does start to get the picture after however long is shown in that 4 edited minutes, but there has got to be a better way.
“The really sad thing is that the horse looks to be trying to get close because he wants sanctuary from all the sudden, unexplained pain when he’s out on the circle.”
That’s what I mean! IF he was charging, the pain should have been in the MIDDLE of the circle, with NO pain, total calmness and release found at the END of the line.
Fuuuuuck, I just do not understand this a bit. Where can the horse go to get left alone? When does she stop moving and let it be?
I don’t follow Parelli, so I’m going to reserve judgement on their program, but I will say, that there are as many horrible conventional horse trainers as there are horrible Parelli trainers. I feel I’m constantly trying to explain this to people: it’s not what a person calls their philosophy that determines whether they will be a shitty horse-person or not, it’s whether they are kind, consistent, sensible, and have a good understanding of equine nature or not that will determine their merit. Parelli might suck–I don’t really know, but I do know that most of the NH I’ve seen has been effective and based on sound principles.
Most of the Parelli Craze is born out of economics, and for that reason, you tube videos of DIY trainers abound. The thing about Parelli is that it takes all comers. Supposedly, if you buy their DVD’s you can learn how to train any horse in 5hrs flat. That’s all well and good, I guess, but nothing substitutes for personal instruction from a professional or having your horse trained by a professional. The disc is less expensive (not by much!!). The result is that a lot of people watch the discs hoping to find an economical way to get their horse or themselves trained, but it’s so hard to learn without constructive criticism in the moment, so the information gets garbled and watered down and then, of course it’s less effective. I DO know people who take lessons from legitimate NH and PNH instructors, and every one of the people who takes lessons is an excellent horse person and rider. The people I know who exclusively watch the discs have considerably less success.
There are so many different things that go into being and becoming an excellent horseperson, so please don’t try to simplify it down to “you do NH, so you must be a shitty horse trainer,” which is an opinion I see put forth quite often on FHOTD.
I don’t think everybody who does NH is a shitty horse trainer but I’d be really freaking impressed if someone who does NH could show me their ability to train a horse to excel at a competitive discipline. You know, make a horse into World Champion SOMETHING, top ten in the nation in SOMETHING. All I ever see these people make is videos and money. Make a world-beater, fantastically trained horse with your methods and I will respect you a lot more.
My thoughts exactly.
Look no further! Clinton Anderson is actually a pretty successful breeder, trainer, and rider of reining horses.
http://www.reininghost.com/press/2008/11/28/112808-open-leaders-unchanged-at-the-nrha-futurity/ – Third paragraph down.
http://quarterhorsenews.com/index.php/reining/reining-events/9005-congress-finalists-determined.html – Third paragraph down.
Clinton is going to slow down on his clinic tour so he can devote more time to riding in competition.
At the NRBC – “The Limited Open title was won by popular clinician Clinton Anderson and his horse Princess On The Prowl, by High Brow Cat and out of Princess In Diamonds. They earned a 222.5 and took home $11,455. They also placed fourth in the Intermediate division for an additional $11,000.” He started the mare at 2 and sent her to another trainer at 3 and then got her back. The NRBC is for horses 4-6 years old.
At the 2008 National Reining Horse Association (NRHA) Derby – “Clinton Anderson’s score of 218.5 sent him straight to the top of the standings in the first section of the $5,000 added Limited Open division go round. Shine On Retsina (Shining Spark x Retsina) is owned by Anderson who hails from Belle Center, OH.”
And the list goes on…..
Name someone who’s gone to the top levels of competition using PARELLI.
If you ask me, parelli is the unwanted bastard child of real natural horsemanship.
This is a pretty common example, but let me just cite the O’Connors as an example of world class riders and trainers who train with NH methods. You don’t get much more world class than the Olympics. I can’t really say I approve of the “make your horse canter in a 2ft circle thing,” but they ARE olympic level riders.
Also, I’m pretty sure that last year I heard something about Parelli people kicking A** at a MO Foxtrotter World Show.
Yeah, here’s a link: http://www.mofoxtrot.com/viewpoint/
So, they are out there. If we’re talking percentages, the percent of NH trainers who train world class horses is probably equal to the percent of conventional trainers who train world class horses. There’s just a whole lot more conventional trainers than there are NH trainers, so NH isn’t as heavily represented as conventional horsemanship at the shows. The reason NH looks so prolific is because of the advertising; not because there are a lot of trainers practicing it.
And of course, I don’t expect to change your mind. I don’t even want to. I’m sure your methods are effective, and your horse probably even likes you, but just be open to the idea that NH methods can be equally effective. I’ve seen shitty trainers on both sides of the NH debate, and some NH trainers might be really, really stupid and ineffective, but very few that I’ve met or heard of are wantonly abusive in the same way that many “world class” trainers are. It’s really a case of the pot calling the kettle black. What’s worse? Stupidity or cruelty? It all amounts to the same thing. I say, pick a good trainer based on the individual’s methods and expertise, and not on the label they choose to use, because I’ve seen people who label themselves conventional who are closer to NH methods and people who label themselves NH but are closer to conventional.
1. This is not a “secretly filmed” video – Linda is miked and as stated this was a part of the original Lvl1 pack
2. Yes it is edited but as it was a part of their finished product one can only assume it has been edited to show us the best bits (god help us)
Apparently discussion on this has been going for some days on a UK forum. Somebody wrote to the Parelli office and received this official reply.
Dear Brenda
We appreciate your message regarding the video of Linda. It is
unfortunate this video has posted out of context as it clearly
undermines Parelli?s goal.
I am including Parelli’s official statement in response to the video.
Let me know if you have any further questions.
Sincerely,
Brooks Helms
The team at Parelli understands the questions that this video might prompt and we appreciate your request for our response. The Parelli training method encourages principles of love, language and leadership in equal doses. In this particular video clip, Linda Parelli is demonstrating a dose of leadership in a rare but dangerous situation. As reinforced in the full video, love and language are very prevalent as well. We included this clip in our educational materials to teach horse lovers how to handle potentially dangerous situations by keeping the horse safe and calm in the face of what he finds fearful. Safety is our number one priority, and the Parelli program relies on understanding horse behavior to incorporate the best strategies for managing these behaviors and achieving success.
We are committed to improving horse-human relationships. Parelli is dedicated to the humanity, dignity, safety and respect of horses and of people. It should be noted that the owner of this particular horse remains a fan of the Parelli method and has utilized the principles of the Parelli method to establish a successful,rewarding relationship with this horse.
That’s not leadership.
That’s asshattery.
“As reinforced in the full video, love and language are very prevalent as well.”
Yep… They always include the words of love and pleasant language to win folks over. It’s those never ending words of Snowflake running free in the fields. Sort of like the words of an abuser after the cops show up.
*headdesk*
Okay, this reads like one of those “your call is very important to us, so please continue to hold” recordings to me. Flowery words but no real concrete answer to my question of “when will my question get answered?”
Sorry had to grab a bucket as reading this garbage makes me feel positively nauseous
“Safety is our number one priority”
Aren’t these the guys who ride without helmets?
Oh wait, from an earlier blog, they like to make sure that “unsafe behavior is addressed long before the rider gets on the horse.
I guess this is one of their methods of addressing unsafe behavior? Wow, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The first time I ever met a “Parelli-ite” was a couple of years ago. I’d never heard the name before then. This was a very nice gal and actually worked as the vet for the stables I was boarding at as well as kept her two Arabs there. The one Arab was about mid twenties and had been a show horse before the vet bought her. The other Arab was the foal of the older horse. The vet showed a friend and me some of these really cool tricks she could do with her younger mare. She could put hula hoops all over her body and she could run and jump on her from both sides and all kinds of stuff. My horse, also an Arab, gave me a look that said, “just try it.”
So I guess I was suitably impressed.
We decided to go on a trail ride not long after that. (Up to this point she’d always ridden her older mare when we rode together. Well, that was the most boring ride ever! Every time we so much as trotted more than a leisurely jog we had to stop b/c her mare was getting too hot. That’s when I realized she was riding without a bit. I’m not sure what she was using, some kind of hackamore thing but whatever it was did not work. She made the comment that she wasn’t ever going to put a bit in her horse’s mouth until her horse learned to listen to her all the time (or something like that). I remember thinking, geesh just put a damn bit on her for Pete’s sake. When did bits become evil? Uhhm yeah, she could play all kind of crazy games with her mare but not ride her. Even back then I didn’t get it. After that ride, though, I realized why she always took her older, previously trained mare on our trail rides.
“We included this clip in our educational materials to teach horse lovers how to handle potentially dangerous situations by keeping the horse safe and calm in the face of what he finds fearful.”
Err, what? How is yanking around on the lead rope keeping him “safe and calm”? I’m pretty much a horse newbie, so someone please enlighten me… is smacking a horse in the face actually supposed to somehow help him when he’s “fearful”? Really?? Because honestly, with my lack of experience, I wouldn’t dream of hitting even one of the dead broke, lazy lesson horses in the face (other than maybe a bop on the nose if one tried to bite, that is). Reefing around on the lead and smacking a horse near it’s eyes when it’s fearful sounds like a great way to escalate a situation, not calm it down.
Having never trained a horse before, or even really watched any training, I’ll say I did get the impression she was trying to get the horse to only look at her and not his surroundings. But it took about 1/2 of the video for me to figure that much out, because whenever the horse looked at her, she just kept on wiggling/snapping the rope. How’s he supposed to figure out you’re asking him to look at you if you just keep giving the same cue? That’s like telling your dog to “come”, and just continuing to yell “come” even when your dog is already standing in front of you. Or maybe more specifically, it’s like yelling “no” at your dog when he looks away from you, and then continuing to yell “no” when he looks at you. It’s not going to take the dog long to come to the conclusion that whatever he’s doing wrong, it’s obviously not about where his attention is, since he’s getting a “no” no matter where he looks!
Pat and Brooke,
The situation shown in this video is not particularly unusual for a TB (my assumption as to the breeding of horse shown), particularly an OTTTB. For better or worse, I work with many types and disciplines of horses, and TBs/OTTTBs number high on that list. Is the behavior undesirable? Potentially dangerous? You bet. Do most if not all of the professionals who watched the video understand what she thought she was trying to do? Yes. Does she accomplish that in this clip, HELL NO. Re-watch it yourselves and watch her not define or hold her space, bother a horse that is neither in her (ill-defined) space nor moving further along in the sequence, etc. This is ridiculous and counterproductive, and it shows someone with limited experience that cannot adequately control timing of pressure or correction/release. Her work is dangerous (sane people do NOT work big horses or for that manner any reactive horses with lines dangling around their legs. This situation is all the worse because of the visual deficit. This fiasco could and should have been dealt with by stopping the owner from whatever problem he was having. Having him sit out the exercise(s) with the horse, allowing it to calm down. If necessary the horse should have been returned to a stall or holding area. Linda should then have worked separately with the horse in an enclosed arena. It may look bucolic working with clinic-goers out in the open under the trees, but this seems not to be a great place to work with a revved up half-blind horse and owner that is getting walked all-over. From personal experience (TOP racing horses and fried OTTTBs) horses like this can be a danger to themselves, their handlers and others. If this horse had chosen to bolt, THERE IS NO WAY Linda could have controlled it. I have been there and in this setting with other horses and people, trees and equipment, a loose, agitated half-blind TB dragging a 12′ lead or lunge line would have been unfortunate. This demonstrates very bad judgment in handling this situation.
‘Keeping the horse safe and calm’, ahm where is the ‘calmness’? The horse is gettting more and more stressed and upset.
GAH…my head hurts…I don’t care WHAT the context of the entire video was — this is horrid. Two words for you, Linda Parelli:
FEEL. TIMING.
And I was anti-Parelli BEFORE I witnessed this….arrrrgggghhhhh….
Agreed…
This just pisses me off – I do nothing “natural horsemanship” with my horses and they ae treated 1000% better than this! This is a form of abuse in my book – jerking the face, HITTING them in the face – it’s COMPLETELY uncalled for! I have a friend that I have been trying to get away from Parelli – pray showing her this video of HYPOCRITS helps!
Borrowing from Justice Stewart: “I know [fuckery] when I see it and the motion picture involved in this case is [just] that.”
I’d call Linda the “rare but dangerous” situation the official response alludes to but, alas, Craig’s List proves that wrong daily.
What “context”? You never, ever, smack a horse in the face to teach it something. All that gets you is a head shy horse that may even turn into a lightning quick biter. Hitting in the face mimics a bite. Horses only bite each other in the face during life-or-death battles. It gets the adrenaline so up, all reason flies out the window. The rest of the time, they bite/kick body mass. For an animal already blind in one eye, this incident must have been so terrifying, I can’t imagine. Ms. Parelli made an enemy out of that horse.
My grandfather got a chunk bitten out of his bicep for much the same behavior.
Lunging is a brilliant tool for teaching a million things. If you take it slowly and do it right. Look at how much Viennese Lippizzaners learn on the line, for example. I’ve found it can teach bending, balance and collection like nothing else. Because the horse doesn’t have the rider’s weight to contend with as it learns to balance itself, first.
Maybe this is where that appalling lunge-girl from a couple of weeks ago learned her technique. All that’s missing is the horse going down in the mud. The frame isn’t large enough for me to see if there’s a rusty truck with the doors open.
PS I know virtually nothing about Parelli. I saw a promo video with people getting their horses to lie down and stand on barrels. It looked like fun. Kind of like dog agility. THIS vid is not training. It’s idiocy and abuse.
I smack my horse in the face when she tries to push me around with her face. She is not headshy. She is not hard to catch. She is easy peasy to bridle and halter. But if she thinks it’s okay to rub me so hard with her face that I almost fall over, she is getting smacked on the nose good and hard.
And I don’t think that will kill her because it is cause-and-effect. Although I use my elbow. You want to rub on me without permission, I will put my elbow in your way. That generally discourages it.
If you punched me in the face, I’d back up too.
http://s496.photobucket.com/albums/rr323/dom_n/?action=view¤t=TUHLynn.flv
Is this video a joke or is this girl serious?!
I didn’t have time to read through all the comments so I hope I’m not repeating much. First of all, to state the obvious, Linda’s behavior is inhumane, inexcusable, ineffective, and completely unprofessional. I might not agree with anything the Parellis teach, but I’ve not personally seen them being abusive (till now). However, the owner needs to be blamed as well. He’s standing right there and never steps in. I don’t care how famous a trainer might be….if they’re behaving abusively or inappropriately, I owe it to my horse to end the training session and fire the trainer. Some people will say, “oh, he was probably too inexperienced to know.” Ha! I could show this video to a number of novices, and I would bet that every single one would find fault with it (then be shocked that it’s Linda Parelli carrying on the abuse).
I’ve seen behavior exactly like Linda’s—from hormonal teenagers who think that flipping lead ropes, longe lines, and hands at horses somehow makes them look cool and in control. That’s why their horses are headshy and confused.
Another point about longeing equipment: Rope halters are not appropriate for longeing. I realize there are some differences of opinion, particularly between Western and English riders. However, I was taught that a horse should always be longed either in a longeing headstall (either with or without a bit) or a bridle with the longe line run through the near snaffle ring, over the head, and hooked to the off snaffle ring (and reversed when the direction is reversed). I was taught that longeing isn’t just something to get your horse’s “kicks” out. Rather, it should be viewed as unmounted riding and, as such, treated seriously. The reason? What you teach and/or tolerate on the ground translates into behavior under saddle. Anyway, a rope halter just isn’t suitable for longeing; and the one this horse has on isn’t even fitted correctly.
Finally, unless you are danger of being killed, you just DO NOT HIT A HORSE ON THE HEAD. Even if she did try to defend herself on this point, Linda doesn’t start doing it till halfway through when there definitely was no call for it…. The fact that the horse is blind in one eye just makes her behavior even more egregious.
This just makes me so sad and very angry. Even as a beginning student, my instructor would have beat ME if I had tried to longe my horse like this. Where did Linda learn that treating a horse like this is acceptable?????
I was taught the same thing about lunging – and hey, guess what? The classic way WORKS. Everything we have to do under saddle we learn to do on the ground first & it didn’t take any shimmying, jumping jacks or clapping hands. My horse is happy, respectful & listens to me when I am on the ground or on his back. Go figure – no $100 stick needed
Those rope halters are not toys- just b/c they are made of string everyone seems to think they are so gentle & kind. They act the same as a stud chain in that they use pressure in some sensitive spots. Yes, they can be useful for training (a horse that walks all over you, for example, needs to be corrected) but be careful!! And most certainly not for lunging.
Exactly. I was raised with the lunge-line-through-the-snaffle-ring method. It worked okay. Then I schooled with a dressage trainer who taught me to use a cavesson with a noseband ring, and side reins with rubber doughnuts. Wow. What a difference. I went from “working” the horse at a basic level (WTC), to real training.
I’ve never heard of lunging in a rope halter. What the heck is the horse learning, if it doesn’t know which way you want it to point its nose? You have to be precise, or the horse’s mind melts.
Odd little story: I took my cavesson to the local harness repair guy. He mostly fixed track tack. We had an argument because my trainer told me to cut extra holes in the throatlatch. Which, in a properly fitted cavesson, does not fit against the throat. It’s looser, so that it fits against the cheekBONE as the horse flexes. The repair guy insisted that a cavesson throatlatch fits the same as a bridle. He said all throatlatches are meant to tighten as the horse flexes. Made me wonder how many of his clients’ horses are choking.
It’s been discussed on a South African forum for several days as well: http://www.horsejunction.co.za/discussionForum/viewThread?topicID=125913
Can’t stand Parelli or their so-called humane methods. My first thought at the video was–”Just what the fuck is she trying to accomplish”. Then to find out that the poor horse is blind in one eye just pissed me off more! What a moron–
What is she trying to do? Confuse the poor horse? Mission accomplished.
Parellis are nothing but snake oil salesmen.
Snake oil is probably good for you: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=snake-oil-salesmen-knew-something
The problem is that these folks, like the ones in the 1800s, slinging the fake stuff as fast as people will buy it. HSUS bought it, but I don’t know if it’s as trustworthy as it would like people to think. There are more than a few “former” PETA and ALF members in key positions and its real work/agenda is being described as animal rights–not welfare– and associated lobbying.
That was one of the most dispicable scenes I have ever witnessed. That poor horse was so confused. Every time he would start to move forward, she’d yank on his head and smack him around. Exactly what is that supposed to accomplish besides making the poor horse terrified and confused. I get so tired of this whole “natural horsemanship” theory. Seems most of the time it turns out to be “natural horse abuse” instead. I’m certain there are some knowledgeable natural horsemanship trainers out there who truly know what they’re doing and are fair to the horse, but honestly, I’m getting sickened by the entire theory.
Training horses is all about being fair, understanding the horse, teaching the horse respect and GIVING the horse respect. Flinging ropes in a horses face and hitting it upside the head (and a blind horse nonetheless) is far from gaining or giving respect. It is teaching fear. The sad thing is that these trainers can feed folks large lines of bull and people buy it!!! I have owned many horses in my lifetime, and many of them were young horses, just being started. I never used “natual horsemanship” on any of them. What I used was common sense! I had happy, well adjusted, successful horses. Confident trail horses and show horses with successful show records. Never were any of them subject to any abuse or torture techniques, and certainly nothing like I just saw in this video.
Maybe some of us who ride horses with our brains instead of with gimmicks need to start a horse training method of our own and save future horses from this kind of abuse!
I’m not going to read 250 comments to find out whether this has already been said, but I have to point out that I don’t think her actual goal was to lunge him – she wanted him to face up and stand calmly, while focusing on her, from a decent distance away. That’s not an unreasonable request. The way she “requested” it however, most certainly is unreasonable. On top of everything else that’s wrong with what she does, it appears that she’s dealing with a classically trained horse that believes that its JOB is to go in circles when it’s on a long line. Rather than patiently teaching it otherwise, she’s treating it like a well-trained horse that knows exactly what she wants and is choosing to ignore her.
Didn’t watch the video as my net is shaped currently and it would have taken hours..But got the basic gist of it from other posts.
Personally I haven’t really dealt with the ‘natural horsemanship’ stuff much..but at a clinic I went to once, one of the girls who was currently working at the stables had her eventing horse brought in for a bit of instruction on lunging.. (He was a young, fit and pretty highly strung TB to begin with). The girl was working with him fine and as he was just learning at times he got a bit confused and did the wrong thing. (Nothing at all serious.. The most of coming into the circle or stopping/trying to go back the other way) Well all was ok and being corrected when the trainer decided the horse needed to be made an example of! She was determined to get him going around like a horse that had been doing it his whole life and the gelding got more and more confused till like TB’s can do (And quite possibly most other horses) he snapped and simply freaked out. Instead of attempting to calm him down what happened? She stood at the wall of the arena and ran him back and forth in front of her bouncing him off the walls. When she’d finally had enough of that and the horse was dripping in sweat she took him back to the stables – He spooked at something coming around the corner and she whacked him one right on the eye with her lunge whip. (Long story short there he ended up with an eye injury that needed to be seen by a vet and ended in a weeks stalls rest getting eye drops daily)
Turning her back to him? Slouching and staring at the ground? Letting him get, what, 15 or 20 feet away from her while continuing to yank his face around?
This is what it looks like when someone is showing off how much they know when, in fact, they have no clue what in the hell they are doing.
I knew the Parellis BEFORE they were “The Parellis” ~ they were idiots then and I see nothing’s changed. Good god…..
Another comment WIN.
Okay. I watched it again.
For those who are saying the hits him in the face to make him get away from her — please notice that she goes to HIM and smacks him. Repeatedly. She CHASES him in order to smack him. At the end, she goes TO him and starts hitting him in the face AGAIN. IOW, she enters his space and punishes him. What is he going to learn from that?
I first saw Pat work pre-Linda. He had some good ideas and good ways for people to work with their horses. There were no carrot sticks and no gimmicks. He was worth listening to. Then.
I am not a Parelli fan. The games they play with horses are fine if you never plan on selling the horse. If someone else should get the horse and not know it’s history they would think it was looney. Linda P. in on way has what it takes to be a trainer. I feel there was a better way than slapping a blind horse in the face. JMO. She sucks.
what a twit. I know if she did this to one of my horses they would run off and drag her ass along in the dirt- where it belongs. I don’t like shit flying in my face- why would one of my horses? and the animal is blindin one eye- what happened there- some other ass smacking this horse in the head with a rope?
I hate you linda- you suck and you ride like you get it in the butt
So Linda trains as well as she rides.
Beautiful.
I see this crap ALL the time being done by these idiots that think they are 1) horsewomen & 2) cowgirls.
I will dismiss #2 with the fact that they have never touched any real livestock & I will state that yahooing around barrels with your horses’ mouth screaming open does not make one a cowgirl. Further, you live in Minnesota, not Texas, no matter what you call your “ranch”.
As for #1- all this jumping around, wiggling lungeline, clapping, etc. The first time I saw it I was flabbergasted. Let’s teach the horse that the cue to back up is shaking the lead back and forth to the point where other horses are distracted?? How about a nice “BACK” or hand sign??? Good grief. Yea, I’d back away from you, too. And, as Fugs says, I can never figure out the constant direction changing while lunging- is there a purpose other than to confuse your horse?
I think some NH stuff makes sense, but none of what works is new- it is what we learned from just being around cattle, horses, etc- they are herd animals. How you move & where you put your body is important. I don’t need some jackass in a cowboy hat with orange sticks to teach me that. I think a few ppl who actually know what they are doing can do the free lunge thing & make it useful, but I have never seen anyone who knows what they are doing (I don’t even try). Typically it is someone driving around the poor horse & creating a torture chamber. They think they are a horse trainer b/c they watched a video. Good grief. I have had horses my entire life & have a degree in Animal Science. I know I am not a trainer & pay someone who is.
The same ppl I see into this all this love and sunshine crap are the ones who seem to have no problem CRANKING on their animal’s mouth while roaring around some game course (wearing spurs for which they do not have the leg control) (don’t get me wrong, I have seen plenty of skillful gamers with controlled horses, good hands & SENSE). They think it’s so mean to use a stud chain, but yanking them with a rope halter is better? Either tool can be abused & I see the rope halter misused a LOT. (yes, I use one sometimes, but I’m perfect, natch)
One day I was feeling a little lazy and decided to “free longe” my horse. 1 minute later when my horse had no idea what I was asking her to do, I was like, “Well this was a stupid idea” . I went back and got my longe line and properly longed her. At which point I had aggravated her from the free longing attempt and had a fun time getting her to go as usual. I don’t understand the point of free longeing. I bet I could teach my horse to free longe if I really wanted to, but I don’t know how we would benefit from that.
Seriously. If this horse was doing something seriously wrong I could understand the “bump, bump, bump”. But the senseless jerking at this horse’s face is only going to make it head-shy. And she repeatedly turns her back to the horse and leans down, like she’s asking to be decapitated. Hello Equine Darwin Awards. But when the horse is just STANDING quietly she jerks it’s face repeatedly? WTF?
These are the kinds of people I see at stables and shows that I roll my eyes at. Absolutely zero common sense. I would be SO embarrassed to be caught on video doing this to my horse. The other weekend my Arabian gelding freaked out and took out half of the isle way in my barn (grooming station on a table). My bump, bump, bumps didn’t come close to the amount of hers, and yet he still got the point. “Yeah, Mom. I’m an idiot. Won’t happen again.” And it didn’t. We had a nice ride thereafter. Did she actually RIDE the horse?
UGh. Her smacking at the end makes me want to smack her the same way.
How hard is it for people to grasp that if you want a horse to stand nicely and watch you, you have to work up to that point? If they don’t know what’s being asked, they just default to the only thing they know… which in this case seems to be circles. But if she’s asking him to stand still and watch her, what is with whacking him with the end of the lunge line? I’ve never had trouble getting a horse to pay attention… eventually. Sometimes it takes a few lessions for them to get the idea consistently, but when I get one of my horses out they are all eyes and ears for me… they are always waiting for my next command… and I certainly didn’t have to go through the “monkey f+++ing a football” scene that I just witnessed in that video… UGH!
I have some experience with Parelli or “natural horsemanship” training being quite detrimental to a young horse. I recently acquired a 7 year old 15.3 hand Arabian gelding, I got him for free as a training project (I love arabs and didn’t want to see him as an untrained 20 year old on the meat truck) because the people who owned him ended their CMK breeding program, gelded their stallions, and sold off what stock they weren’t attached to. Long story short he’d done nothing but sit for 7 years doing nothing (actually he was sat on a handful of times as a 5 year old), and they only used Parelli like methods of “asking the horse to please please do what you want it to and let it blow up until it decides to do the right thing”. In general I like the ask before you order policy but in this geldings case it taught him to THROW A MONSTER FIT until you call him out and then he does what you want. Its downright dangerous and unnerving when he is throwing himself around, rearing, threatening to strike and biting anything (thankfully he leaves humans out) he can get his mouth on (he tried to mangle the trailer spare tire). The odd thing is he is a sweet, curious, intelligent horse that does not seem to be by nature aggressive. He just believes that its okay for him to be a complete jerk if he doesn’t like something. Fortunately he is smart and is improving very quickly. I strongly believe that a horse should do what I tell them to do because I told them to do it, there does not need to be another reason, no fit throwing, no exploding, and if I am doing my job right they will want to follow my guidance. I feel that talking horse to horse leads them to believe that they can talk horse back…..excuse me but I don’t want to be bitten, kicked, and bullied until we find out who is dominant. Sorry for the novel, I just saw the perfect opportunity to rant
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I wonder if blind horses are inherently scared of lunging?
There is a miniature horse named “Chester” at Pasado’s Safe Haven who is now mostly blind due to very severe abuse he received in a domestic violence situation. He is very chubby and doesn’t get nearly enough exercise. I thought he might lunge well in his paddock where he is comfortable and used to the footing etc. Instead, he was utterly confused. He bucked his little rear end off, constantly turned to face me, and wanted nothing to do with the whole lunging idea. I tried a few different times to teach him, but found he did very well trotting along beside me on his longe line instead. He needed to keep his better eye on me to be comfortable. I didn’t press the lunging issue because he wasn’t my horse and I didn’t have the consistent one-on-one time I would have needed to (maybe?) slowly build up his confidence.
This video frightens me. Imagine if she had been working with poor Chester? Talk about a flashback.
Hmmmm. Often I dont comment. But when people (especially big name “Professional” trainers) let out videos like THIS for all of us to see, I have to say something! Ill just agree with fugly, she SUCKS. The poor mare is so damn confused and upset. LINDA YOU SUCK! Jeez, if you stop REEFING on the poor mare’s head for Ohhh… TEN SECONDS, she might re-evaluate, and think about respecting you. Give her a moment to think, you control freak.
As the owner of a mare who is fully blind in one eye, I know there are training challenges. She can be trying, and difficult, and often stubborn to her blind side. I also know that as her trust of me grows and grows she gets more and more willing to perform, no matter what it may be. For me mostly, but she will behave for others as well. And… SHE LUNGES!!! *gasp* BOTH WAYS!!! *gasp* EVEN IF SHES SCARED!… And… Are you ready for this? SHES AN ARAB! I dont claim to be a professional, but my half blind, once abused arab can lunge just fine, quietly, walk/trot/canter and whoa both ways. When she cuts in on the blind side, I have no hand or body signals (Since she cannot see me) so we use words (Out) and a little whip flick. These two small noises combined and she moves right back out on her circle. Ive never had a problem teaching or enforcing that.
Her two main faults are the two things I DO see on this video. She tries repeatedly to put scarey things ON her blind side (out of sight out of mind?!?). She “forgets” where I am sometimes and comes into my “space”. These two things were corrected with consistant gentle correction, and her gaining trust in her handler. However, to this day, she does turn and look at me when I ask for “whoa” on her blind side. I let her. Its her small reasurrance that I havent gone anywhere LOL (Shes always watching me, if I walk away on her blind side, she’ll pretzel herself trying to see where I went, its rather funny!) She still frequently when being led, gently “touches” you with her nose. Not hard, just brushes it against your arm (She is blind on the left side). If I yarded on her face for this, she would never lead like a quiet and respectful horse. Yes she is in my “space” but she cant SEE me so she carefully feels for where I am. Its one of the small allowances I make that allow her to fuction normally even though she is blind on that side. Others who have turned her out for me have noticed the same thing. Sure shes not “perfect” but shes BLOODY WELL BLIND! She is quiet, respectful, and has outstanding manners, and it didn’t take a dramatic, theatrical, control freak event to come to that.
If someone… ANYONE professional or not yanked, yarded, and pulled on my horses face, with that amount of disrespect…Id do the same to them. Lets put a halter on Linda and yank her around the yard awhile, see how she feels. Good grief, I had more patience and respect than that at TEN! (Likely cuz if I had done something like that to my pony, my mother would have done the same to me haha!)
Good post Fugs. More asshats train onwards! *sigh*
What really pisses me off is the fact that no one is stepping in to stop her! Why the heck are they scared to stop this “woman” (in the loosest sense of the term) from tearing at his face? People walk by with their horses, glance over and just keep walking. The other person longing their horse in the background has to get their horse’s attention because it’s saying “WTF.” And the OWNER doesn’t have the cojones to stop her either!
I don’t care what the horse did ten minutes ago! The horse doesn’t even know what it did ten seconds ago! NOTHING legitimizes the excessive use of force we see in the video. Horse charges you? Give it a big whack and move it out of your space, and move on. “Talking” with horses is a continuous process. It’s a neverending conversation, because they’re not going to remember that you asked it to trot three minutes ago, and just like people, they need positive reinforcement and encouragement when they’re unsure of what to do. Would you think it fair if your boss fired you because you didn’t do something they never told you to do in the first place?
Now this is a horse that has been trained well and NOT by any Parelli fanatic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHQczRbBHxI
Just goes to show you, you don’t need to be whacking a horse in the face or jerking his halter and whatever else those idiots do to train their horses.
I don’t really care about the tricks he does, or how he trained the horse, but I would kill to have his seat!!
OMG that halfpass at 1:15 looks so cool, I really wish the video would have shown it going for more than like two seconds! Passage at the end was cute too. Didn’t like all the laying down and crawling around at the beginning– to me, that’s just begging to get your spine broken, but just my personal opinion. I’ve seen the horse agility videos before and thought they were cute. Not my cup of tea, but something I would respect as long as people train it the right way and the horses enjoy it.
oh and here is one more awesome video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqVLY8YfbEo
I couldn’t watch the whole thing.
I’m just speechless.
That’s wrong on so many levels… If somebody can’t see it, I’m sorry you learned it that way.
I can’t imagine any discipline or any sort of animal or human training where a ‘trainer’ would behave that way.
Her actions have no point other than, perhaps, to make her the center of attention.
I think this vid must be on every horse fourm in the world! One had to wonder about the effect it will have on his & her reputations.
What I find realy interesting is that NOBODY seems to be able to work out exactly what she is trying to achieve. Maybe it is in some secret Parelli code that we uninitiated cannot understand
Forgot to add – apart from the total lack of timing, feel, empathy in her rope work don’t forget there is a bull clip on it !!!
Have you ever hit yourself with one of those suckers?
Imagine being whacked around the face with oneby some stupid woman pretending to be a duck!
No wonder the poor horse keeps looking around for someone to save him.
Some one should clue the Parelli’s in to a basic fact: If humans don’ t understand what the training goal is, how is the horse supposed to?
This “demonstrating a dose of leadership in a rare but dangerous situation” really fixed something? Perhaps one solution (probably the responsible one) would be to say: This horse requires a higher level skill set than the handler/owner has. Let me teach you proper handling skills on another horse. Then you can apply them to this one.
The stated reason for the dangerous situation is something like charging, crowding or dancing while standing. Lets ignore that fact that, as we all know, a horse in a new area looks around and a one eyed horse will move more in order to check out the area. These issues, in my experience, stem from a horse that is unsure about it’s handler and a handler that is obstinate/ignorant about how to handle a horse.
Now comes story time: My TB was unclear about proper leading procedure (which I found shocking considering she was 17). When leading she would dive in front of me at the canter and pull me around, which happened all of twice before it became totally clear that her ‘leading’ consisted of circling in the direction I wanted to go. I got out the lunge whip and, next time she stuck her nose in front of me I rapped it with the handle. Everything stopped, I gave her a moment to think about what just happened and started to walk. The rapped nose was a specific choice on my part: the issue wasn’t her shoulder moving into me and she got rapped when the nose passed my body’s centerline. We walked another five steps, she dove and got rapped again. Another pause and continue to walk. Three steps, dive handle comes out and she pulls her nose back to her side. Never dove again.
This is an example of a dangerous situation that, if it remained, would have likely ended with her diving into me instead of in front of me. Yeah, I hit her in the face, because that was the leading body part. And no, she isn’t head shy, it was action and response. I did not continue the response once the act stopped.
This Parelli response is, in my opinion, excessive. At no point that I see does she let the horse drop his head or stand to think, I see her wacking the horse every time the head moves. The horse has probably learned ‘hand near my face=move away’ really well, which is going to suck come bridling but what is even worse is what has the student learned? Waving and wacking.
First off WHAT THE F!!!? Is she insane I caught myself screaming at the damn computer for her to stop! I think she needs to lunge my 38 yr old Appaloosa mare. Once she picked her dumb ass off the ground maybe there would be some sense knocked into that empty head of hers. And if you notice the horse in the background they keep moving it into his line of site so shit yea he’s going to look!!!!!
How has she not been run the F over by a horse yet?? Even a well trained horse would take issue with that kind of treatment, can you say head shy, nipping and popping his head back at the slightiest movement near his face.
And hell she’s popped herself in the face several times too that’s why she had the guy move closer to the tree so he wouldn’t see.
I just have to have my two cents-
Everyone is over-analyzing the video. Everything happens so quickly that do you think the horse understands all the little techniques that were kind of trying to be jumbled in to that foolery? When the horse was being whacked on the butt it didn’t think that it was supposed to “disengage the hindquaters,” it is most likely wondering what it did wrong to deserve the treatment. Just because we as humans are able to see some training in the mix doesn’t mean that the horse is able to decipher it.
Firstly Cathy, thankyou. I hope you know how appreciated you are for your efforts to make a difference to horses all over the world!
I read all 271 comments and watched the vid from go to whoa. It turned my stomach. I have questions – why is it not OK for a horse, any horse, let alone one that is blind in one eye to look at something? Wouldnt’ a better response have been to stand with him as he looked and do some poll release work so he learnt that he could look and relax and feel safe all at the same time?
I wrote an article recently for our monthly newsletter (I run an Aussie Brumby rescue: http://www.victorianbrumbyassociation.org) which I humbly offer:
PEOPLE KEEP ASKING ME ABOUT NATURAL HORSEMANSHIP!!
What happened to plain common sense and sensible, kind horsemanship?
Being a good horseperson is not something new. It isn’t something invented by an expensive American trainer and it doesn’t require either a lifetime of horse experience or an almost clairvoyant ability to read others thoughts. It doesn’t require that you buy a $60 leadrope or a $100 whip or stick.
Good horsepeople manage to achieve a huge amount by doing very little, with either few or no ‘tools’. What sets them apart? Only a few very basic things.
Good horsepeople LISTEN TO THEIR HORSES. They not only treat them as the individuals that they are, they celebrate what makes them individual as an integral part of their bond.
Good horsepeople GIVE TO THEIR HORSES BEFORE THEY TAKE FROM THEM…and when things go wrong, as they sometimes will, they give to them again. I don’t mean food. Sometimes horses need space, sometimes they need to be reminded that they are clever and unique and we love them for that. Sometimes they need to be reminded (as do we!) that ‘work’ is fun and varied and interesting, or that they won’t be ‘worked’ every time we see them, or that we know where that great ‘scratchy spot’ is! Of course, sometimes, giving means a carrot too!
Good horsepeople HAVE A PLAN A…. A PLAN B….. A PLAN C and the ability to develop a plan D ‘on the fly’. Horses are just like us. They feel different on different days; some are better at certain things and sometimes, they ‘just don’t get it’. To the good horseperson, this presents the opportunity to figure out a different or better way to teach or connect! When we ask for A and are offered B or F, we are still offered SOMETHING and should treat it as a gift.
Good horsepeople DON’T HAVE AN AGENDA. Our horses don’t understand the importance of a blue ribbon or that you only have forty five minutes today. If you only have a limited time to train something, don’t start! Do something your horse is great at instead and reinforce their self confidence and your own.
There is so much jargon about at the moment that many of us are confused. Words like ‘Fluidity’ and ‘games’ sound great, but leave many people doubting their ability to train their horse. Some trainers will tell you that every horse can be trained using the same methods. Others have now discovered that each horse has a unique personality. If they have just ‘discovered’ that, where does that leave the rest of us who have known it since we kissed our first horse?!
I have found time and again that our Brumbies thrive with people who listen to them. We have rehomed many in homes where their new family have never owned let alone trained a young horse before and they have huge success with these once wild horses. Why? BECAUSE THEY LISTEN. They’re not afraid to ask for help or go back and start again. They develop an intimate relationship with their Brumby which is based on trust, respect and love. Most importantly, they offer leadership without dominating. True leaders support, care for and love their followers. They are also not afraid to learn from them.
Thanks again Cathy and all the other readers and contributors here!
Colleen
Who at HSUS made the decision to name them humane trainers of the year???? Are they being paid off??? The response from the Parelli people that this video was taken out of context is inane -as far as I’m concerned, this video IS the context and clearly makes the point their training techniques are dangerous and unfair to the horse. I suppose if the FEI can tacitly approve of Rollkur when they had the opportunity to outright ban it, the HSUS can endorse Parelli as humane.
Here’s some conspiracy theory for you – maybe the Parelli’s are recieving kickbacks from KB’s for all the slaughter-bound horses their training methods create. OK -I know that’s cynical and reaching -but I’m just sayin’ :p
You have your answer with HSUS….do a little research on them.
0 likes
Hmmm..link didn’t work http://humanewatch.org/index.php/site/post/hsus_mortgages_its_credibility/
I’m unlikely to ever turn against HSUS because they do very good work in a lot of areas. They do wonders with legislation and educating the public about things like puppy mills. But I will call them out, just like anyone else, when something is stupid and making Pat Parelli the Humane Horseman of the Year was really, really stupid.
What the FUCK does that lady think she’s doing?
Now first off, let me start with a story to show exactly how Linda is wrong (and batshit crazy). A couple of days ago, we got a new horse at the barn. Uh huh, great, sure whatever. Like a large percent of horses that we get, this one had never really had any formal training, and was purchased by a beginner so that they could “learn together”. Yeah right. And so of course, several months later, when the horse was put in training at my barn, it had no concept of respect, much less that people have a “bubble” that he’s not allowed in. I was the first person at the barn to handle him the day we got him. I opened up his stall to put on his halter so I could put him in a different stall. He happened to be eating at the time, and immediately pinned his ears and lunged at my face and tried to bite me. Please note that I’m 5’2″, 120lbs, and 16 years old. The horse, on the other hand, is about 16.2hh, purebred AQHA, and built like a draft horse (I had to actually ask about his breeding at first because I thought he was a draft cross). Needless to say, had I not been around horses as much and had slower reactions or not known what to do, he could have easily maimed me or even killed me. My reaction? I squared myself up, put every last bit of force I could into my fist and punched that sucker in the side of his mouth. The look on his face can only be described as “HOSHIT!”. I gave him a second to collect himself at the back of the stall, then walked up to him like nothing happened, put his halter on, and pulled him out of the stall. It’s been 5 days now, and he hasn’t pinned his ears or threatened to bite, and walks calmly next to you with his head down. He isn’t headshy and I can walk up to him in his stall no problem. He isn’t afraid of me in the slightest. Because he understood exactly what he did wrong, and understood why he got punished (he tried to defend his food from the “boss horse”, the “boss horse” “kicked” or “bit” him. That is exactly what happens in a herd, and is therefore very understandable to a horse).
What was the point of that whole story? He did something very, very wrong. I corrected him in proportion to the offense, I corrected him only one time, then I moved on like nothing had happened. Which is exactly what should happen.
So why the HELL is Linda Parelli chasing that poor horse around slapping its face for no reason? I’m not some little NH worshiper who wouldn’t dream of smacking a horse. I have no problem smacking a horse. If they need to get smacked, then they need to get smacked. What I have a problem with is chasing a horse around slapping on the face for no reason. There is no excuse for that. None at all. The poor horse did nothing to deserve it. It’s one thing to smack your horse if they bite you. It’s a whole different thing to chase a horse around the end of a (is that a really long leadrope or a really short lungeline? I really can’t tell) slapping it in the face for no reason.
And what is she doing ripping on the horse’s face like that? Again, I don’t have a problem ripping on a horse. Of course, I believe that you should have a better reason then “because I felt like it”. If the horse takes off over the top of you while you’re leading it, by all means, jerk on the leadrope! But flapping around like some retarded chicken and alternately flipping the leadrope up to hit the horse in the face and jerking on his face because… wait, no, I’m really not seeing a reason. I guess possibly because she doesn’t want the horse… nope, that doesn’t make sen… oh! I figured it o… oops, no, that doesn’t work either… hmm. She’s really got me stumped.
At the beginning, I see a horse that is a bit strung out, nervous, and not really sure what’s being asked. I see the horse trying to respond the way it thinks it should (lunging). Even if lunging wasn’t the goal (hey, it’s not like you can tell from that craptastic video) and the horse was wrong, you don’t get in it’s face and “scream” “YOU’RE WRONG!”. You realize that the horse doesn’t know what you want, you take a second to think of a new way to ask, you try again, and if that doesn’t work, you think of yet another way to ask. And you keep going until the horse understands what you’re asking. That’s what training is.
At the end, I see a horse that is completely strung out and on edge, a horse that is headshy and terrified to move, and I am willing to bet that if you made a move faster than a turtle, that horse would rear up and strike at you/charge at you/lunge at you and bite you/etc…
Way to go, Linda. Way to go. I just spent 6 months untraining a horse due to your wonderful methods, and he wasn’t half as bad as this poor horse. I only hope that she found someone who took pity on her and was willing to take the time to work out all the issues that you and your idiocy caused.
PS: Why are you repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again when it clearly isn’t getting any results? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Although, personally, I believe that that’s the definition of stupidity, but hey, in your case, it could very well be both!
PPS: Is anyone else having a little daydream where Linda Parelli is doing a demonstration at a show they’re at? And you have your nice, well trained show horse there, and you expect to do very well. You happen to be warming up next to the area that clinics are taking place in. And Linda is doing a clinic at that time. You’ve just finished lunging your horse when all the sudden, Linda is standing next to your horse, asking you if would like to have your horse used in the demonstration since she saw that you were having “trouble” lunging, and that your horse wasn’t lunging correctly, even though you were doing just fine. So of course you’re surprised, and say “yes, of course!” You watch closely as Linda leads your horse over to the clinic area, the watch as she starts waving her arms around and flapping the leadrope, the attempts to smack your horse on the face. At which point you calmly grab your friend/trainer/SO/family member/etc… and lead them over to Linda, and ask if they can hold the horse for a second. Then you proceed to chase Linda around the arena with the lunge whip you’re still holding while screaming “If you ever fucking touch my horse again, I’ll sue you for every fucking penny you’re worth!”
*cough* I can’t be the only one having that daydream, can I?
Some people said they couldn’t tell which side she’s was hitting: You can see when she’s smacking him in the face, she’s hitting the side that he can see on. I noticed about half way through when he threw his head up and the sun hit it, the other side had no eye at all, just a hollow socket, so the left side was blind.
Now down to the video, Im sorry, smacking a horse in the face, snapping a lead like that on there face, is just going to cause them to be head shy and NOT want to be on a lead line at all. You know if a horse didnt have problems before, it would after this, that horse is a saint!!
I didn’t even realize what she was trying to do for a whole minute into the video! I thought she was having a spasm or something…when I realized she was lunging… I don’t know… my only comment is:
They’re professional trainers? WTF!
this looks entirely like someone who is going to fix a problem without stopping to think about the mechanics of what she is trying to acheive.
Linda is entirely failing to send the horse forward, so now she has created one who uses going backwards or barging even more so as it’s own fix.
Have a plan, have the clearly defined points that say you’ve acheived. Yanking and jerking, without driving the horse up into your hand is just going to piss him off.
Fail Parelli Fail
Long time reader first post. I do not own horses but it has been a life long dream of mine. Watching this video made me sick to my stomach. WTF is wrong with her? This seems so freaken wrong and confusing that I can’t even imagine how confused the horse must be with this yank and crank crap this wench is doing. I train dogs, same concept as horses but much smaller and if I ever pulled some crap like this, I’d expect to get half of my arm bitten off!
As my trainer always tells me, if you can’t figure out what the person is trying to ask the horse to do, the horse sure as hell doesn’t know what the person is asking it to do! There’s nothing consistant about her “corrections”. I don’t see where the horse is even doing anything wrong when she “corrects” it. It’s not dropping its shoulder and it’s only going into her space because she’s pulling it into her space.
Also, I was always taught, if you need to correct, do it once, and make it count. None of this “nagging” business. You confuse the horse and just upset it.
I personally don’t use a “longe line” when I do ground work. I have a rope halter with about a 13′ lead with a leather popper. My trainer does progressive horsemanship. NOT to be confused with this natural horsemanship mumbo jumbo. Sorry if any of y’all are into that but I’ve never found anything useful in it.
P.S. If that’s a front quarter she’s attempting in there she’s doing it ALL wrong and the horse is just swapping ends. Gosh do I hate the Parelli’s….
I have a little first hand expierence with the Parelli “family” When I wanted to learn how to ride a horse , I looked for an older gentle horse 20 year old quarter horse. I found on e advertised as a “Parelli” horse , perfectly trained by Karen Parelli. I purchased the horse .( to make it short) Horse was very underweight and quiet. (all horses on lot were underweight) I was told that they kept their horses thin so the would “work better” .I came home thinking once i fed and wormed this mare I could start riding her.WRONG!! No one could ride her, she bucked everyone off as soon as you collected her, or gave her leg when SHE didnt want it. She bucked in the arena, she bucked when you wouldnt let her chase the cows, she bucked when you tried to ride her English. I spicifically told these people that I needed a quiet horse for a first time rider. They didnt care , just wanted the money. I was also told by the ex, that the whole concept of this fine training was all her idea , and he divorced her and ran off to market the idea as his own…NICE. When I aproached Pat Parelli at a expo to tell him no one could ride the horse that was sold as a “parelli horse ” he told me to buy his stick and book and shut up. Later when I fattened the girl up and sent a photo , thinking anyone would be happy to see their horse looking better with a new owner , she yelled at me for sending a file that was so big it took hours to download. What a bunch of crooks , the whole lot , the ex, Pat and his new sidekick. We have a bunch of clones here following Parelli and doing stupid things to their horse . When we tell then they will hurt their horse they tell us Parelli told them to do it . We are talking about tieing horses up with tack on all day long and leaving horses sattled in the pasture all day long without supervision. He is so busy counting his money that he isnt controling the forign parelli teachers. I really dont like this man . The horse was never riden after I gave her to my ex husband , she is fat happy , and well cared for …. to this day no one can have a nice ride on her. She is healthy , back is fine hooves , just dominant.
Oh… and Clinton Anderson.. a parelli off shoot.. then off to his own devices…
He over flexes horses necks/heads TOO much!!
I was looking at a gelding for a client, and he was at a nice normal trainer who had taken him in. Before he got him, guess what.. a CA trainer had him..
I was trying him out for possible beginner riders, you know the ones who ride with two hands, plow reining…
I asked the horse to go to the right on a direct rein, giving a bit of leg pressure to emphasize where and how I wanted to go.. guess where the poor geldings head was???
Yup.. right at my knee or foot.. the slightest pressure on his face from the bit on direct pressure…
He had been soooo over flexed that he wouldn’t go to the right or left, when ridden on a direct rein vs neck rein his head would be by your foot…
WOWOWOWW.. now that is ruining a horse!
All things in moderation!!!
What the fuck did that achieve????? I wonder if I can find the link to this vid and post it all over FB and ask the Parelli nuts what’s going on.
so another thing ..I think we all agree that we think the Parelli methods are unsafe , and disturbing … how do we hold her -them accountable for the stupid things they do, and their clones that are the forign trainers ? you know there is another forum right now of Parelli lovers complimenting her on her “wisdom” and fine horsemanship with this horse. I couldnt watch by the way , I saw the training methods when i purchased my mare… she couldnt be caught, that should have been my first red flag. 45 min of throwing the lead roap at her to tire her out before the owner of 20 years could catch her. It took me a bag of carrots and 3 weeks to train her to run to me from a 20 acre pasture when I held her lead rope in the air. If you own a horse that you cant catch your doing something wrong, very wrong.
OMG, if I saw someone doing that to a horse in person I would call them out. If it persisted I would call Animal Control. That is plain abuse. I thought Parelli was supposed to be all carrots and colorful sticks.
You guys are missing the point. Parelli methods are about giving people who don’t want to ride something to do with their horse. By totally f#^&%*king up the horse, they have an excuse to keep doing ground work, and not riding.
Bigname trainer or backyard trainer – doesn’t matter – I would have taken the lunge line and told her to get the f*ck away from my horse. And my horse can see out of both eyes.
This is the second time I have watched this video today, and I STILL don’t know what the hell she was trying to achieve and whether or not she achieved it.
All I saw was absolute freaking stupidity- the horse was getting mixed signals, didn’t know whether it was Arthur or Martha, yet she just relentlessly whacked him with her not-so-savvy rope.
At the end I did NOT see a horse who would happily stand at a distance- I saw a horse who just too damn scared to go near her.
This is NOT horsemanship- it’s just plain fucking stupidity. Excuse my language, but Parelli really freaking bugs the shite out of me.
I charge $40 an hour to handle horses on the ground- and I too know that if any video of me working with a customer’s horse ended up on YouTube, I’d have nothing to worry about.
I’m currently working on a warmblood with floating issues- we haven’t even looked at a float yet, we’re starting from scratch. Slowly, carefully, yet thoroughly estabilishing the basics so that by the time I leave, the owner can confidently load their horse every time. I started teaching her to lead properly, stand still when asked, back up on command. No abuse, no whacking, no jerking of the leadrope. She told me today she used to be scared of the horse, because he was so bargy and pushy, I wouldn’t have guessed because after just one session with me, he led like a gentleman, and he gets better every time.
The term ‘Natural Horsemanship,’ marketable methods like Parelli (and others but don’t get me started) all bug me to tears.
Someone mentioned above- read them all, go to all the clinics, buy all the DVDs if you want- but use the parts that work for you and your horse.
What I do is Commonsense Horsemanship. I wonder if I can market that phrase and make millions? *Rolls eyes*
O.K. I can’t believe that Linda actually makes money doing this…Puhleeze! It’s a joke….
Sure there may have been more to that video, but it certainly did start too look quite abusive and if the horse was not a tad head shy before wonder what it was after that treatment! It was just a good thing the horse was quite an amicable creature and didn’t rear up and pop her one!
As some have said, I take a bit of this and a bit of that out training and use whatever works best for each horse and I’d class myself as novice, used some NH techniques to educate a young, unbroken horse (something I’d never had dreamt of doing once upon a time, working with young and unbroken) and a lot of it made for a lovely horse, somethings I found didn’t work well for him. I am not in to getting it done fast techniques, nor using abuse to get the message across and I would certainly never would treat one persons teachings as gospel, animals are far more complexed then one shoe fits all, some of these guys are very good marketers. I paid to be a fence sitter on a Confidence Clinic by an Aussie once and by 12pm on the first day I’d seen enough and that was after I’d already become a NH convert, too much fluff talk, too much pushing of their merchandise and the clinic did seem quite expensive.
Jist on a side note, there is a golden rule with training animals, when you start to get annoyed and find yourself slipping into a bad mood using harsh technique, finish off on a high note and give it a rest! The abuse of that horse went on for far too long IMO.
I like that horse. I watched the video (sans sound) and THEN I read your post that the horse is half blind. Its reactions were appropriate and very quiet, given the confusing mixed signals it was getting from the human.
At the beginning of the video, it clearly was confused by the proximity of the second person within the center of the longeing circle. Later when Linda was wigging out, the horse’s reactions were very subdued. My horse would have been more histrionic.
“Linda Parelli is demonstrating a dose of leadership in a rare but dangerous situation” What did the horse do dangerous? The only dangerous thing I saw was the longe was trailing on the ground and the horse was stepping all over it. That’s dangerous.