I amuse myself

[maggies_lens]

in bad_riding a vid was put up of Linda Parelli (or however the hell you spell it) basically beating the living crap out of some poor horses' face with a lead rope to make it back up. Um. Natural horsemanship EPIC FAIL! I taught Desi to back in 5 mins using my hand on her chest and a loose rope flicking at her feet to get her to move them and make the connection. And that's when I was GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEN as grass with young horses and never trained one in my life. Gawd, even *I* knew back then that would work. She's meant to be a TRAINER, a world famous advocate for a kinder, gentler way. Pfft. You know, I read all the Natural Horsemanship books when I got Desi, they made sense in a lot of ways and I learnt a lot, but I didn't play 'games', I never read ANYthing about BEATING a horse, and I ended up using the advise from an old Australian horse trainer book (who's name escapes me at the moment! Aussies, help? Old guy, had a series of books, Tom something or other.....). Anyway, my responce to the entry, had some 3-minute fun with Google and then Photoshop *snigger*



t-minus 24 hours until I know about Lead Dispatcher. *quakes*

Comments

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

Right, sorry its' taken so longt o reply to this but my time at work on LJ uis VERY limited and yesterday there wasgarden destruction to contend with, and since you wrote a long reply it deserves a well thought out non rushed answer.
I agree that the horse appeared to be distracted and off task, and that she is always under pressure to 'perform', but I still think her methods were un-called for. The gelding (I assume gelding) only had one eye, since I know how looky-y a 2-eyed horse can be (hey they are a prey animal) I can only imagine how much more look-y a prey animal with limited vision may be. If fact I know they are more looky as we've had a couple half-blinded horses at my paddocks. Regardless, I think she was wayu too harsh. She was giving mixed signals and she was being almost abusive, which is why everyone reacted like that.
I think the better thing to do if she wanted the horse to settle down and pay attention would be to lunge it in a yard, rather than out in the open like that. Let it look around and wear off some nervous energy in the process. I dunno about you, but I find that if they keep moving their feet in a controlled manner their brains tend to follow suite. Mostly!
It was pretty clear the horse just wanted to know what was going on. He didn't look like a nasty animal at all. He wasn't barging or intruding into her personal space, in which case that shanking etc would be warrented.
But even if it were, it was excesive. The poor horse was confussed as all hell. She didn't release the pressure off him when he was trying to do what she wanted, instead she demanded a full body movement with slapping and shanking. I'd kill anyone I saw using a shank like that on a horse that SO didn't warrent it. His head must have been in agony by the end of that 'training' session. He's be bruised from here to November all across his poll, his nose and under his chin. She also slapped him in the actual face. The one and only time I have EVER hit one of my horses in the face was when Desi was small and tried to bite me.
The bay looked confused, scared and in pain. He wasn't soft or going soft at all in any time of that whole clip. And considering even Peri started going soft when Paul freaked him out at the trim and he's so damn reactive and disassociated, that to me screams she's doing it wrong.
good trainer doesn't care what people around her demand re time wise; good trainer gives the individual horse time to work things out their way.
I've used the Parelli methods to teach Dan and Desi to back up at the end of a lead rope (it's a handy skill when I want them to move and am not right next to them) but all that involved was shaking the rope to and fro a bit. Not full on shanking and slapping and, well, physocally assulting, them.
I agree you often have to wait for them to re-connect with you, but I think lunging calmly and letting them get the energy-bees out that way is probably wiser than getting caught in public doing something that would get you banned in every show and association I can think of. This sort of crap happened a lot to halter Arabians, esp in the '80's, now if you get caught doing ANYthing like this you'd get a life time ban. Gotta be a reason for that...
In Tom's words; there is always a better way.