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Trainers and mentors. Do you follow one or many?
How do you know the trainer/mentor is right for you and your horse? Who is your favorite and why?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Lamm on
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Thanks Marti... they are so awesome to me..... I only know them, I don't know any other horses... but even when I watch videos of other trainers and stuff, they don't seem as crazy as a lot of horses... so here is a question I will put here.... maybe you guys can help me.... and I'll send you each a buck.. LOL...
Oliver, my mustang, responds well to forward movement with a whip with a plastic bag on the end..... but, I do think he is scared of it... poor guy, he snorts... he is not a spooky horse and I do not want to make him a spooky horse.... what shall I do.... to use the bag to move him, but to also help him not be scared of it...
advance and retreat I expect.. anyway, I'm gonna play with him for the next 3 days....
Toby I will take on a long walk, just me and him. :)
Jen
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Permalink Reply by Geoffrey Pannell on
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Jen , To be honest, I'd through the ---- bag in the bin!!! Never used it , never seen the need for it , I like to get up close and personable ( should that be horsenable!!) with my horses. I think it's a load of old bollocks!! Cheers Geoffrey, P.S. you don't need to send me a buck!!! lol
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That is so interesting that you would say that Geoffrey... I guess if you ask a million people...... you know how the saying goes.... so let me ask you this? If you can get close with a horse..... why do so many people tell you that you have to have your own space? My Oliver is just IN my pocket, and I know I can just crawl up on him.. I am so stuck in between the is that okay that he is like a dog with me or should I move him back? He is not a skitty horse so a regular tool like a rope or whip with any kind of energy, doesn't move him... but the bag on the stick, we can do so many fun tricks and games and he'll run around for me and play..... it's the only thing that works.... :) and I love doing liberty work with him.... so Geoffrey, maybe you can describe some things you do up close with your horse that Oliver and I can do...he is following me, but he's a little close sometimes and doesn't like to back up. :)
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Permalink Reply by Jen B on
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Hi Jennifer, I have the same issue/problem. Horsemanship trainers are always telling me I need to establish my personal space. For some reason I have difficulty being consistent about this but I have at least come to realize the importance of the concept. My two worst offenders (not coincidentally, the ones I raised:) will bump into me for scratches and follow me everywhere. Sweet... but when the going gets rough, they'll also practically crawl on top of me for security or body slam me cause they just don't have the space respect. Both of which behaviours are really dangerous.
It really is about respect. It is fine for you to enter their space on your terms, but it should not be vice versa. And you will find (as I did) that if you don't establish respect in this way, it will become a problem in other areas (such as not responding to driving aids - as you're finding!) It is great your horses are comfortable with you and affectionate, just don't let lines that establish you as a leader get crossed. Otherwise you'll find yourself being seen as a human scatching post that is fine to ignore/trample/disrespect when the going gets tough.
Words of advice from someone who is still struggling to do this when I am out hanging out with the herd!
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Hi Jen..... well, Oliver does not do that.... he has never been allowed to run on me or anything like that..... he is an interesting horse in that he will stand in one spot.... face to face with me, probably since I've had him since he was a baby..... he is about 3 feet away, but he will not step backwards easily but I've asked him to everytime I see him, over 1200 times now... ..... and he will stretch his neck and head for a pat.... but he will not move his feet any closer that 3 feet forward either, and you can touch him everywhere at liberty and he's seldom on a rope, and you do not have to catch him.... he walks right up and respectfully stands. if he doesn't know you or trust you though, yes, he might jump on you... you must keep your distance from a distance with him and you are much safer... with me and my trainer, ... he has never scratched on me with his head or anything... but as relentless as I am, backing him up from the front does not work easily. He is the kind of horse that you can get real big with your energy and he will still come forward.... He is super mouthy so I am forever correcting his head and asking him to not stretch it out and come in.... .... in fact, he and I are in the no zone pattern that Chris says to not be in.... so wierd that for like 3 years I've stood right in front of him and we don't know where to go, duh......... now, we can walk side by side and I can scratch his withers.. and he does not come in...... but he does not go out. His thing is like, I'm being good, don't make me go away, but he never takes the liberty of coming in...... he is actually a very obedient horse..... but to do the work I want to do.... I have to get him on the rail... now Jackie said she wants to ride the horse, not play, but I love liberty and for me it is playing..... I want to do the walk to trot to trot to walk exercises before I ride him and get forward motion....... even if I fly at him with a rope, touch him with the rope, smack him with it, he won't move forward...... he starts scratching bugs or his ears with his back foot... he could not be more disinterested..... now the bag.... omg, he trots so pretty and he is listening so good. we had a relationship for 5 months, he was on the RAIL, yipee!!...... till my trainer busted me and took it away... i even had Oliver doing inside to the rail turns and he was getting much less close and he was respecting me and I defined my space which I learned from GPonyboy and I loved it.. by pushing him away I got him..... he was following me..... now, whatever that energy is, I need to harnass it if I can't have my bag and whip, because he and I are so good with it, and bring it to the online work..... Oliver is so playful and mischevious that the second he is about like 10-15 feet away from you on a line, he pulls the rope to the outside and takes it away, and runs off a little then stops..... this is where I am stuck. I am not even gonna do that if he is just gonna get worse...I am not playing his game, I want him to play my game..... it seems like I would need to send him around a few times and then ask him again, so I can start lunging and doing serpentines on line and really getting speed control..... but if my energy stick is taken away and even if I run after him like a banchee he won't move forward, I really think the game is over as they say..... I don't know what to do next. I can't take him on walks outside of my arena if he is gonna grab the rope and run off and think it's okay.... and I'm sorry Jackie, but I just don't feel like I have the relationship with him to ride him if I can't get all the groundwork done..... so, I'm grounded, no stick, no bag, no fun for me and Oliver... my trainer called me yesterday and said to just hop on bareback.... and I know I can.. but so what... Me and Oliver can be together our bodies touching for ever.... he doesn't move, I don't move, we just hang out... but so what. He has got to move forward or backward, he's got to move his feet or our rides are gonna be really short... whatever the energy I need to move him forward without the bag, I don't have it.... :( that is so sad..... but it's like effortless with the bag.... lots of trainers have said in books it was okay to use it on a dull or lazy horse.... Oliver is like mischevious and uninterested all at the same time... it's kinda hard to explain him...
I have a pushy horse like you are saying too.... he's my Toby, he's 27... I know when he is being rude and I make him back up and get back. I have a really strict trainer... he doesn't let the horses be like pets at all.... you know in 5 years that I've been a novice, I've never been stepped on... kicked or bit or anything bad... my horses are nice to me, but they don't want to work for me.... Toby, I know how to make him but Oliver I had it and now I gotta figure out something else.... at least I never give up..... I will ride my mustang and go wherever I want to somehow someday... we are both only 4 right now... I need to not be a predator and not scare him with the thing.... and that is MY idea. to sack him out with it and use it..... but maybe it will be a crash and burn, who knows... before I started with the bag thing, he would eat them..... had to pull them out of his mouth. then steve said, my trainer, no he's not scared of it he finally understands you... and that is what I thought. took it to the bank for 5 months and moved my horses feet around. He seemed to trust me and be easier to manage.... but he did get spookier of the bag.... :(
When I very first found Chris Irwin, I was trying to move Oliver, from the no go zone, looking at his head and moving him forward, right into me.... he charged me and pushed my neck back really far once..... I was really scared of him.... I got the bag and stick for me...... so maybe my horse is a teeny scared of it, he doesn't seem scared of anything to me, but this thing maybe..... but I quit being scared.... for 5 months I roundpenned my horse and I moved his feet and it was exhilirating..... and we had a respectful, fun, work, getting somewhere relationship... now he's back to standing firmly and there is no more forward motion.
Kinda sucky. :( Jen.
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Permalink Reply by Shirley on
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Some trainers do not like their students doing anything they have not taught them. Sometimes you have to go with your own intuition. If the stick and bag are the only way to gain Olivers respect and to know his place, what else are you going to do? What is your trainer telling you to do? To get on his back when you can't control him from the ground? How sensible is that? Does your trainer use a lunge whip or crop? Really no different... if used moderately to gain the respect you need that is a start and you can gradully move away from either so you aren't dragging a bag and stick around with you all the time. That WILL scare some other horses right into panic mode rather then respect mode. You can grab a twig off a tree and another bag out of the kitchen. I had a very difficult time telling my trainer that I respected very much that I had to try some other methods and he respected that and kept an eye on us. After the fact he said "For some reason, it has worked for you two". Go to You Tube and look at some of the things Parelli students are doing with stick and string or some other trainers that use similar ...different things work with different horses and what one person can do wtih a horse doesn't mean the next person can get that same kind of respect right off the bat. It sounds like Oliver respects you in most situations and that will grow when YOU do the right things for you and Oliver. Even trainers have to experiment with different options sometimes when not getting good results with their traditional methods. Not all things work with all horses.
Of course don't give up...you are right on the verge of finding your answers.
Keep Horsen Around!
Shirley
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Permalink Reply by Jackie Cochran on
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Is Oliver gelded? Was he gelded properly?
What you are describing sounds a lot like what my stud colts (ie. before gelding) would do. If a horse is not gelded completely ("proud cut") he will still act like a stallion and cause a lot of problems. They also can have this irritating "you can't make me" attitude, continually testing the boundaries and seeing what they can get away with. My colts would back away from (or move forward from) some ultimately dire signal (just joking), but when that particular aid disappeared I was always back to square one, having to start all over again, especially in getting them to work! This is why these horses (both stud colts and "proud cut" geldings) often NEED to be sent to professional trainers (which you are doing some--very good idea.)
I feel for you. I also experienced extreme GREAT frustration and disappointment when I started training. I am not trying to tell you what to do, I am sharing with you some of the methods that worked for me with my horses when I was faced with similar problems oh so long ago when I was still able to train youngsters.
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Oh Lord, I hope the vet cut him right..... he was gelded at 9 months old... Steve was there when it happened... and he works with stallions alot.... I swear, if he wasn't cut right, I am gonna be pissed... I think it is his age, his orphanness and his brattiness of being a mustang and his personality actually..... I'm pretty sure if he wasn't cut right that steve would have thought of it... I don't know very many horses.... but he seems a little less offensive than what some people describe.. now how would I know for sure if they got it all? If I get him right, with the right correction, he calms right down and is submissive, but he's right back at it..... ugh, he takes a ton of patience. :)
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Hi Jen , The reason I don't want my horses in my pocket is because my pocket's aren't big enough!!! Just remember the weight difference between you and your horse, do you want him to be jumping into you in moments of stress? It's not him that will get pushed over and hurt. In the herd the Alpha female uses distance to gain respect in the young colts and fillies. Nothing is more worrying for a horse than to be expelled from the herd, so the alpha mare kicks out the misbehaving animals as discipline and when she allows them back in to the herd they are submissive. This is the behaviour we want to replicate, with us as the alpha mare, not the other way round. Now you don't have to chase the horse away, but if the horse advances on you unsolicited you must push him back a step. I don't play games, I train, the horse is on a lead and I train the horse to stop, go ,park, turn and yield in hand. Rewarding , in the first instance, with an immediate release for a basic effort. That might not be a complete step ,it might be just a sway to the direction I want, by releasing for a basic effort the horse has time to understand that the pressure is released when it moves , all horses are looking for is the comfort zone, an area of no pressure. Which is why it is so important as a rider to sit still when you have your horse going along, and not poking at them with spurs and things . Mostly horses are very willing partners if they know the rules, as long as we are consistent in the application of these rules then we don't have too much trouble. The rules must be simple ,as the horse is a simple animal , one aid , one answer. I did take a video the other day working with a youngster that I think I can post here( if it works ,I HAVE TRIED A FEW TIMES WITHOUT SUCCESS) Cheers Geoffrey
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Geoffrey, What you describe here as training is what Pat Parelli teaches as games. Same skills under different names. From what I can see there is very little difference between longeing and the circling game. The biggest difference I can see is that Pat's program goes on with this because he teaches to go from doing it on line to doing it off line. Some people do not appreciate this and call it circus tricks. Many other people and horses love doing it. It causes a great connection between human and horse. My horse will now move out, walk, trot, canter, whoa and go, back and side-pass with no line attached. He will do transitions as asked and change direction just by cues from me. I love it! I have no desire to jump over any picnic tables but I suspect you do jumps as difficult or more so. I used to tease my local trainer (not a Parelli follower) that I wanted him to pick up this rickety old picnic table that had been abandoned out on a country road so I could jump it with Cash. LOL Cash MIGHT be athletic enough to accomplish it but me doing it is a big joke. BIG JOKE!
Keep up the good work!
And, cheers to you!
Shirley
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I think Mr Parelli does it off the line though??? I have them on a lead, calling it play is ,I think a very smart marketing ploy by Pat to get people to do SOMETHING on the ground with their horses ,and it has been very successful for him. The other difference is I don't want my horse to move unless I touch it. From what I have seen of Parelli practitioners in this country , they want the horse to move from their mind.I think that is a load of old tosh. I have read his book, Natural-Horse-Man-Ship and have it in my library, and there are some aspects of him work I applaud, but I not a big fan of liberty work. For an experienced person with the right horse , not such a problem, but when green people get hold of it and try to do what Pat has spent years perfecting, they invariably get into trouble. I know this because I spend a large amount of my time fixing stressed horses from people who don't or can't read the signs when to back off. It's been a great money spinner for me!!! The whole idea of the plastic bag, for example, when I break a horse in I desensitize it by bagging it down, I use an old towel, when the horse is use to that, I use my hands , then I never have to use it again. The plastic bag is flapping and crinkling all the time , so with a more sensitive horse there it no release of pressure from the bag, it makes some of them lose the plot completely. I guess with any system if it is employed poorly it can fail. Therefore the simpler the better. You only have to teach your horse 5 things, stop, go ,turn, park and yeild. Everthing comes from those 5 things. Thanks for your comments Shirley, I think this is such a good forum for the exchange of ideas. It's good for my typing to, I haven't typed this much in years. lol. Cheers Geoffrey P.S. Tha other thing to remember here is there is nothing new under the sun, we rework and rebadge methods that work for us with any animal at any stage. We are not reinventing the wheel.
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Not trying to change your mind but it seems you have some misconceptions...Pat starts online and progresses to doing it off line. You'll have to fill me in on 'old tosh'...that's a new term to me. It's NOT done by moving the horse from the mind, it is done by refining your cues from very large arm swings that might include a crop-type stick to give you a longer arm/reach at first to just wiggling your finger. I have a girlfriend that can load her horse onto her horse trailer backwards simply by moving her fingers to let him know to back and then which direction he needs to back so he loads straight. I've already shared with you what even I can do off line with my horse. I am sure there are many people that cause problems with their horses by not following the program as Pat presents it. I have seen many people in my country that SAY they follow Parelli and then I watch them and I know they are NOT truly following Parelli. They may have the stick and string and lead line and rope halter but they have none of the technique or at least very little of it. As for calling it play rather then training, it really is both because the play comes in as you progress and can get your horse to do many neat things that aren't part of the traditional techniques. A small example is to be able to get a horse to weave in and out of cones without touching the horse or using a lead line is pretty fun or getting them to stop on a dime with no lead line attached is pretty darn exhilarating. It's not done by getting the horse to read the humans mind It's done by gradually training them and refining cues till the human actually gives very small cues. I find many people take a brief look at one video or read or skim over a book but never really see the results that thousands of people around the world are having with his techniques. They may not be totally new ideas but they are being presented in a way that more then a few can follow. There are many people that are finding success or they wouldn't continue to make Pat lots of money by buying his more advanced home study courses or paying thousands of dollars to go to his upper level classes for a week. At his Parelli Celebrations that are being done this year around the world, there are people coming in from the local areas that can do all kinds of stuff with their horses so that people can see what average people are accomplishing with their horses. Many are like myself and did not start out with much horse knowledge but their dreams are becoming their realities. I truly believe that most of the people that end up with horses that YOU need to fix are those that have not followed the program as it is taught. There are plenty of those!!!! It's interesting that you mention you only have to teach your horses five basic things and the rest stem of those...Pat teaches a similar philosophy.
I am not trying to 'convert' anyone here. I just know there is much misunderstanding of the Parelli program and I like to try to explain so people have a more accurate idea. Pat does not claim to have invented any of this himself. Others taught him what he knows. He has only put it together in a way that others can learn it too. If you ever have questions about what Pat really teaches, I'd be glad to take the time to share.
I agree this is a great forum for exchanging and clarifying ideas. BUT it sure is a time eater!
I suspect you are a wonderful trainer and I do admire that very much. Keep up with the good work, and enjoy your successes. I wrote you a note a short time ago that your facility, grounds and horses look awesome. The pictures look like you have a very high positive energy going on there. I think that was you~~~~~
PS Pat does not use plastic bags to teach his horses to go. He MIGHT use them to help with desensitizing horses but I don't think so...I don't remember seeing it in any of my many videos. I know there are several other trainers that do include them in their programs. Used properly it can be beneficial to help desensitize a horse. Used improperly you can cause alot of drama trauma for a horse that is counter-productive/ harmful/ damaging for the horse.
Cheers! Shirley
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