parelli????????

[saza60]

Hi all. I am wanting to do parelli with my 11 month old foal. I havent got the spare cash at the moment to buy all the things that i will need e.g. the books and things. Could you give me some advice on how i would start with the foal?

sarah x

[fleabitten]

What about mixing and matching things from all types of natural horsemanship. I would recommend buying The Fearless Horse by Roger and Joanna Day as this in my opinion is invaluable - start bombproofing from an early age and they will be much safer to ride when the time comes!
I dont think certain horsemanship methods are better than the other - maybe you could mix conventional with natural? Would be useful if selling your horse later on as they would be familiar with conventional methods too which are more common.

[hollyvj]

I agree with Fleabitten, I tend to mix natural methods and conventional. I just use what works best for my horse.

[Jen]

is there anybody on your yard willing to help out and lend you heir parelli stuff just while you get started??

also i agree with the others about mixing different methods to get the right things for your your neddy.

[stillonly1wu]

No, no , no Parelli.

The only horse I ever knew who was started with Parelli was grumpy, ungenerous, bit (really hard) anyone who came near him, went backwards quicker than he went forwards and picked up anything on the ground and flung it. That was because his first lesson was to do with pony cubes under a traffic cone and he had to pick up the cone to get at the cubes. Why To ask him to lower his head .

There are loads of things you can do with an 11 month old foal.

Stroke him all over, head, legs all the way down, under his belly. Might take some time to get all the way round.
Brush him likewise with a nice soft body brush
Pick up his feet and bang them gently with a hoofpick. Ask your farrier if he'll pick his feet up (most will).
Put light stuff on his back if the opportunity happens: a glove, a jacket, a numnah.
Take him for a walk (with an older horse if you have one).
Put a pole across the door of his stable/gate of his field so that he can walk over it.
Put tack down in front of him so that he can investigate stuff he will have to wear one day.
Open the front and back ramp of the trailer and walk him through it.

He doesn't have to join the circus. Just let him be a baby and show him things.

Good luck.

Wu

[fleabitten]

I agree with all of wu's suggestions - it is bliss to have a horse who is great to load! It would be useful to teach him to back up as well - was gonna suggest teaching him to back out of a horsebox if its only rear load but even old horses learn that really easily! Although I suppose they have to be taught how to back up in hand first!... but yes - get that book i suggested; EVERYONE wants a bombproof horse ;D

[rebanna]

saza60 if you email me i will send you some stuff it's pdf file's so i can't send them via Pm's
Parelli with foal's is alot about imprinting they use like a body wrap to encourage them to walk forwarders.
but you don't put you hands over where your foot would go as this will de sensitize them to the leg when the time comes I'm shore there's loads more that iv forgotten tho

[baymare]

i wouldnt do it.looks like a load of circus tricks to me.i agree with wu and flea.bay.

[duckles]

As I've never had any experience with foals I can't say much here. But years ago I was on holidays and I went to this riding place. They had the nicest horses I have ever met in a commercial yard, really happy, forward, calm uncomplicated well mannered animals who were fun and a pleasure to ride. I was told that they were bred by the owners and I asked about backing methods and they told me they did nothing. The foals just watched all the other horses and then when they were old enough, joined in. They practically 'backed' themselves. Never any problem accepting bit, bridle or rider or any of the other things. Nothing fancy but treated right from the begining by happy calm sensible people.
Saz, I know may not be of much help and I would want to be doing things early myself, but sometimes less is more.
Wu's suggestions did sound good.
To be honest I would love a foal some day- looking forward to hearing about your progress

[rebanna]

hi saza60 emailed you good luck with your foal

[charleykips]

I was a sceptic about parelli, prefering to stick to my guns about traditional UNTIL today i sat in on a parelli demo today at my yard with alison jones teaching it. There were 4 horses that i know from the yard and to see what they could do by using bodylanguage + and - reinforcement and other things was sooo good, there was no agression or lost tempers just a lot of calm and even if the movement was only slight there was a lot of praise.
I think until you have sat and watched one of these demos and have a even the slightest understandiung of the parelli games you cant throw the idea of parelli away like iv learned today. Like alison said today the horse is perfect , its us who need to learnm how to communicate properly with them...Stillonly1wu maybe the horse you knew who was started this was was not responding as well as he could as the person working with him wasnt a proper leader? Like i say im not expert and dont claim to be but until you understand parelli you cant knock it.....iv got a long way to go ......me and kip are just starting our journey

[spotti]

I've just been having a nosey at some parelli stuff (I've sworn I've hated it but never really gave it a chance so figured I should do some research into it) and before you try it, you want to watch this! This is one of the parellis (or one of their trained up people) 'playing' with the horse...just watch from about 5:00 minutes onwards and then tell me that parelli is natural and kind to the horse...(to get them to do the stupid circle thingys, they hit the horse with the 'carrot stick' and then scare it backwards...me thinks parelli can get stuffed!!! I'm sticking with Monty!)

[spotti]

It would help if I posted the link...

www.parelli.com/content.faces

[spotti]

grr, you'll have to sign up to see the video...(that's just stupid!)

[spotti]

Hmm....unless I download it and then show you....

[charleykips]

Even monty faced opposition when he was introduced. Im going to give it a try when iget some equipment sorted out so ill keep you all posted on how were getting on.....you never know i might not like it after a week or i might love it and be converted......anyone who is firmly traditional should add luke tucker on face book and listen to his thoughts on traditional riding he is enough to make your blood boil, seems what ever you do there is always people out there who oppose you......guess for now well agree to disagree lol

[brigadier]

Id rather boil my head in a huge vat of oil than explore parelli, like all methods there are some good points but these are by far outweighed by the ridiculous suggestions and techniques that are part and parcel of their money making barrage. Dont waste precious funds and time on such a comercially biased product, unless of course youve got it to burn!

[spotti]

I know Monty faced opposition...for 40 years! I can see parelli is a different way of doing things, and the idea behind what they do is good (getting a better bond between horse and person and taking the time to listen to your horse) but the way they go about it is all wrong! hitting it with a whip, no wait, "carrot stick" - like that makes it better!!!!

I was almost drawn in by the parelli way, nearly forked out lots of money to give it a go thinking what they did was impressive...but to get the horse to do all of that stuff they make it scared of what will happenif it doesn't do it! That's just wrong! You don't have to be a brain surgeon to figure that one out!

I am an animal behavior student and my aim in life is to make the lives of animals better understood, thus making their lives better. Even though I'm still in the early stages of the course, even I know that postive punishment (addition of pain/undesirable effects when the wrong behaviour is done) doesn't work!

ARGH!

I see the point to parelli, and everyone is welcome to their opinion (and to challenge me on mine) but this is a subject very close to my heart and the way the parellis go about early training is wrong. Violence, no matter how slight, has no part in training. And no part in life. The end.

Ok, rant over.

[duckles]

I didn't actually know the Parellis were into punishment and violence- to be fair to them, I thought it was all about communication etc- I know the carrot stick is similiar to a whip and it is pretty silly but I did think it was meant to be used as an aid not a punishment?? But I don't really know.
Parelli didn't grab me becasue it was so contrived and complicated that I couldn't relate to it plus the money thing is a turn off. I don't think there is any one magic formula anywhere that you press and you get the perfect horse. I think they are all individuals and need patience and respect and constant effort and loads of love.
Some people are great natual communicators with animals and sometimes they try and teach that to others- and if you can pick something up from them, its great. But sometimes I think people get confused and start doing excercises because they are in a book or whatever but they do they completely wrong or do ones that aren't suitable for their horse and it can be a recipe for diaster.
I am quite shocked about what you (Spotti) say about violence in early training.

[spotti]

Duckles, it sounds like I made out the horse was beaten, which I suppose it wasn't, but 'tapping' it hard enough for the camera to pick up the noise from a good 10-15m away is far too hard in my opinion. And then continuing to waft your arms and your 'carrot stick' around and blatently scare the horse is in no way a "natural" way to train a horse.

From what I have learnt, there are 4 types of reinforcement (bear in mind that positive in this case means 'addition of' and negative means 'removal of'): -
Positive reinforcement, which is the addition of a deisrable e.g praise and reward/treat/toy when the desired behaviour is performed.
Negative reinforcement, which is the removal an undesirable e.g. pain/pressure when the desired behaviour is performed.
Positive punishment, which is the addition of an undesirable e.g. pain/pressure.
AND
Negative punishment, which is the removal of a desirable eg. praise and reward/food/toy.


Positve reinforcement (addition of desirable) and negative punishment (removal of desirable) are the most effective ways to train any person/animal - lets use a horse in this example. They work together promoting the positives and because the horse gets praised for the right thing (and doesn't get praised for the wrong thing) the horse soon learns what is being asked and will happily do the 'right' thing because it gets praised for doing so...it doesn't even think about doing anything 'wrong' - and why should it? Would you think about rebelling against your mum (or someone similar) if they kept you happy and well fed and gave you everything you needed to remain happy? I doubt it.

Positive punishment and negative reinforcement (addition of pain/pressure and removal of pain/pressure) however, only reinforce what is 'wrong' and don't give any indication about how to do the 'right' thing, thus making the animal think up new ways to avoid the pain/pressure, often resulting in other 'undesirable' behaviours, which results in more pain/pressure for the animal because they did it 'wrong', so they try something else to avoid tha pain/pressure...it's a vicious circle that eventually spirals out fo control.
Think of it this way: what do you do when someone tells you you're doing something wrong? You try something else/try to do it differently. What do you do if they STILL tell you you're wrong? You try again, but with less enthusiasm than the first time. And you're wrong again? And again? And again? What then??? You give up, that's what. You'll be thinking that if you can't do anything right then you'll do nothing at all. THIS 'NOTHING' IS STILL 'WRONG' IN THE TRAINERS EYES, THEREFORE THE HORSE EXPERIECNES YET MORE PAIN/PRESSURE BECAUSE IT'S STILL DOING THE 'WRONG' THING. Eventually the trainer will give up, call the horse 'dangerous' (due to its avoidance behaviours) and it will get passed from pillar to post, getting harsher and harsher treatment (the poor thing getting more and more scared and confused each time) until it is either terrified of humans forever OR it ends up getting PTS/sold to the meat man as the poor thing has no more 'use' to humans.
You know this is true, and I'm sure you all know of at least one horse/animal who has been treated this way. It really upsets me because all they needed was a trainer with a different way of thinking who would have listened and praised the animal for doing the right thing instead of punishing it for doing the wrong, and the poor creatures life could have been so much better, and in the more drastic, yet sadly too frequent cases, their life could have been saved.


Now back to my point about the Parellis (from what I've seen) - from the early stages of training, they use this "carrot stick" to move the horse about and show it what to do. Fine...in theory. Where they went wrong was using the stick to positively punish the horse for doing the 'wrong' thing (i.e. not going where they wanted it to go) and then negatively reinforcing the desired behaviour by removing the pain/pressure caused by tapping/hitting it with the "carrot stick". The next time the horse does the 'wrong thing' he gets pain/pressure put on him again He will soon start to think of new ways round avoiding the pain/pressure, which may or may not wind up with yet more 'undesirable behaviour' somewhere down the line, which leads to more pressure/pain on the horses part, which leads to yet more avoidance, which leads to more pain and more avoidance and even more pain...see where I'm going with this?

The Parellis have got the basic idea right, they've just gone the wrong way about achieving it. I don't doubt that their techniques work, but if you want a more 'natural' way to train your horse, and have a happier, more balanced animal at the end of it then listen to him. Talk to him in his language. Praise him for being good and just ignore the bad bits...he'll never need to think of the bad bits again if the good bits are made worth his while...

Go on, you know I'm right.


Saza - I'm sorry for hijacking your thread

[rebanna]

the parelli's are not into punishment you do tap them with the end of the carrot stick you dont hit them, i think it's wrong if you don't know about something to sit and slag it off and some of the thing's said are slanderous as they are completely untrue. Monty Roberts halter applied pressure around the horses muzzle the same as putting a rope around the muzzle in my own opinion this is far worse then taping them. you are tort to push the hair then the skin them the mussel that's as far as it goes the idea being you can applie pressure just enough to push the horses hair down and it will respond and it works i was very skeptical when i started but it was part of my course i let a level 3 student work roo and was amazed how calm and relaxed she was i didn't let her ride her which would have been the real test but she worked in front of 30 students a big deal for her, one of my very good friend's is a Monty Robberts qualified person (sorry i don't know what level) has to run roo in and out of her stable because she couldn't lead her. i think what works for one horse will not work for another it's about trial and error it's about finding what works for you and sticking to it just because someone else doesn't like it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

I'm a qualified animal psychologist i spent 5 years studying and when i go see a horse in 30 min's i normal end up using 5-6 different methods some natural some traditional. it docent mean one is better than another in my round about way of saying it lol

[spotti]

I'm not meaning for this to sound in the least bit argumentative, but I didn't actually just sit and slag off the Parellis. What I said was that positive punishment and negative reinforcement are not the best way to train anything. I also said that I dont doubt that the Parelli techniques work (meaning that they probably do), I just think they are going about achieving their goal in the wrong way and that there are much better ways of doing things.

As for the "carrot stick" - that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of! What a load of tosh. Like I said, anyone is welcome to challenge my opinion as this is my area of interest and I feel in my element here so fire away!!!

I totally agree that one thing doesn't always work for all, but my main point is that by listening to your horse you will find the right way of doing things...the horse will tell you what he likes and doesn't like and also what he needs or doesn't need.

As for punishment, people don't like to use the word as they think that it's "harsh" or "cruel", which it is if you use positve punishment (the addition of an undesirable e.g. pain/pressure), but negative punishment is a useful tool as it counter-balances the positive reinforcement, making training all about the positives and always ending on a good note. Parelli wouldn't want their followers to believe they were using 'punishment' to train their horses since parelli is supposed to be a more 'natural' way to be with your horse, and as previously stated, the general idea of the word "punishment" bears with it a negative, cruel, bad feeling that 'natural' people want to avoid...the truth of the matter is that addition of pain/pressure (i.e. an undesirable) is a form of punishment. Theres no disputing that fact. Therefore parelli does rely on a form of punishment. And yes, so does Monty Roberts' halter. And yes, the Dually may actually be more harsh than the "carrot stick", but the Dually allows the horse to teach itself to release the pressure; the "carrot stick" on the other hand relies upon human relief, which dependant upon the human, may become even harsher still (we can all have a bad day, and with a whip-shaped stick in our hands, who knows what could happen...)

Now I'm not here to slander the Parellis or to big up Monty Roberts (as in my opinion they are both doing their best to improve the lives of horses around the world) BUT I would like to say that I follow neither entirely, infact, I barely use any techniques published by somebody else and so I am quite entitled to state my opinion. As is anyone else.
I'm not saying that I'm right and that everyone else is wrong, just that Parelli DOES rely upon positive punishment, as does the Dually Halter by Monty Roberts, and that positive punishment and negative reinforcement are not a good combination if you want a happy horse at the end of it all.

I never intended this to become a debate, I was simply stating the facts as seen with my own eyes, but I have to admit that it is nice to finally have someone to have such a debate with! (most people I know don't know/care about training methods and simply follow what other people do and never seem to have an opinion of their own, so thanks Rebanna for letting me have this debate It was fun - no hard feelings, yeah?

[Blonde Donkey]

Mar 12, 2009 16:21:25 GMT brigadier said:

Id rather boil my head in a huge vat of oil than explore parelli, like all methods there are some good points but these are by far outweighed by the ridiculous suggestions and techniques that are part and parcel of their money making barrage.

Wise words from Brig
Parelli is considered a disgusting word in our house after my mum saw a display.
Fair play try it but considering all the messed up horses i've met a lot of them have been parelli trained horses
I'm gonna side with spotti and stick with Monty and Mark Rashid

[haffyfan]

Mark Rashid for president!!!

Rebanna I thought you were a a teacher?

[rebanna]

sorry if I'm reading this wrong but where does parelli say they only use positive reinforcement ? is it your own opinion or something they have said? (i don't have my glasses on )

there's no hard feelings at all but on a public forum you can't say thing's that are not true and i was talking about allot of things that were said not picking on you spotti or referring to the above question.