Why do many people think 'Parelli' solves everything?

Question

I have met many horses who don't understand the natural horsemanship techniques, even when done by Parelli, Roberts, Anderson, etc. These horses leave the ring more confused, some even quivering in fear.

Yet on this forum, every day I see "Do Parelli - it'll fix your problem" no matter WHAT the problem is!

Everything from "My horse hates apples" to "I can't get my canter lead."

Parelli's techniques can't fix physical limitations, confirmation, and muscle tone. Yet people use it as a 'catch all' answer and really seem to believe it just like a religion.

I don't understand why people think it will solve everything, including medical issues!!

Can anyone help make this a little more clear?

Rhinestone-- I did NOT generalize and say "all Parelli folks are idiots." Instead I asked why people think the man (and his fellows) is 100% foolproof.

So now that YOU have generalized MY comments... *glare*


DZJessie-

My horse is 16 years old. He does NOT understand any natural horsemanship techniques. Any Roundpen work makes him 100% confused. He's been trained by pros and amateaurs, too.

I don't take the time with him? I spent every free momment with that horse.

We don't have a relationship? I've slept currled up against his side. He's saved my life on many occassions. He knows me, respects me, enjoys our 'snuggle' time, and loves me as much as I love him. There is nothing we wouldn't do for each other. He does EVERYTHING I ask him to that he can physically do. And guess what- he's got 100% perfect manners-mounted and ground work. He rarely gets hit (once a year? maybe!)

All w/o any natural/parelli techniques.

So what could Parelli fix that we don't have?

Morgan-

Yes, if he does something horrible (Like mistake fingers for carrots and try to bite my fingers, for example) then yes he'll get a small pop to release my fingers.

Of course I try "hey!" first but... apparently I have tasty fingers? ;-)

He's never ever ever ever abused. He's spoiled rotten.

Answer 1

Have you noticed how, if its not Parelli, its wrong?

I have some dear horse friends, and my gosh, its like if I don't do Parelli way, my guys are suffering!

I swear its about to drive a knife in our friendships.

I have no clue what they (parelli) would do differently, but one friend told me that am mean to my mule. (This was about 4 yrs ago and yea we are still friends). So heres the scenario....

He's a big mule, and he's in public ALOT, so I expect certain things. One of those was, him standing still while I am standing still. He doesn't, he gets moved in rear gear at a high rate of speed, not fast enough, then the lead rope comes out and ensures that he is moving backwards etc.

So my parelli buddy, sees this, tells me that I am being mean to Stretch.

Her mule, now has a huge vice with head slinging and bolting off while being lead. But since she has that GINORMOUS plank in her eye that she can only critique because it wasn't a 'parelli' trained way that i worked with Stretch, she can't see past to her own issues.

Her mule ended up getting resold and retrained and resold as a broke mule by a mule person who, doesn't use parelli. He takes the mules out and WORKS them. They get packed and ridden for miles.

Stretch never hardly gets reprimanded anymore. I haul him to nursing homes and let them feed him, pet him etc. He wasn't trained parelli, attempted it, but hated it.

I have another friend with a bucking fresian, that is still in a halter, still piledrives her into the ground and was parelli raised since 6mths old. He's 5 and still in kindergarden.

I wish this parelli cult would stop dissing what works for others. Parelli doesn't solve everything, but if your too narrow minded to think outside the box, the bucking fresian, the bolting mule are sometimes what the results are......

good post again girl!

Answer 2

The funny thing on the Parelli method is that all he has done is taken techniques from different trainers in the past and put them together in a package and sold it. He is laughing all the way to the bank because of people who are ignorant about horses.

There is nothing wonderfully different about the Parelli method that any good trainer should teach their horses. With horses (as with most animals) they look to be the head of the pack, especially at the initial stages of the relationship. Without having rules and lines in the sand that can not be crossed, they quickly become the leader of the herd, because they weight 10 times as much as a human. And the funny thing is that human is afraid to disciple the horse for fear of hurting it. It is discipline, not abuse. Abuse comes with emotion attached, and you never hit or get after an animal with emotion behind you, as that will lead to abuse. Discipline is getting after them quickly and having it over quickly, no emotion. It is just to correct a behavior that is either not wanted or dangerous. Once that animal knows the rules, they are extremely happy animals as they can then be social with humans. However, that human must always remember where the rules are and the lines drawn in the sand as it is more likely for the human to confuse the animal by getting after them today for what they let the animal get away with yesterday, which is not fair. That is the plain simple way of Parelli, just packaged with some marketing and fanatics behind him.

Parelli will work with most horses as these are techniques which are thousands of years old. He is not a horse God or some whisperer, he just put all the techniques together into a terrible package (in my opinion) that caused some sensation. The thing that I do not like about Parelli is that the students (usually green riders or green horse-people and scared) have a clinic for less than a week, learn some techniques and then are sent on their way. How many bad habits will they develop in the first month after? Tons, it is a terrible system in that regards, because it actually is more abusive to the animal and human.

Answer 3

I think you have a very good question..

Even though I have nothing bad to say about Parelli and have found that by following his ideas and methods I have accomplished more than I ever have from any other person/trainer, so far Parelli has never failed me. (And I have tried many trainers ideas).

Just like everything else in this world it is not perfect, and many people don't have the patients for learning natural horsemanship. It is far more demanding on the human than any other method I have ever tried. And In my experience allot of his ideas do not mix well with other trainers ideas. It is more of an all or nothing, making it a downside.

So many people when it comes to training horses think about techniques and tools. This is where natural horsemanship can get people into trouble.. Natural horsemanship is more to do with having a different mindset, aproach and attitude when it comes to horses. The techniques are just the icing on the cake!. In my experiance People who use natural horsemanship tequniques but use the wrong mindset, aproach and attitude are likely to fail. For example I can say that I play the 7 games with my horse but "how" I do them makes a HUGE difference, I can make them into the 7 jobs or 7 tortures if I wanted to.

Most people who are successfull with horses weather they do natural horsemanship or not typicaly have these traits (calm, gentle, asertive, caring, good comunicators, patient, focused, and know what to do when) These kinds of people generaly have an easy time getting allong with horses and will probably find that they almost never have a bad horse day. I think you sound like that kind of horse person (=, you might be doing natural horsemanship without even knowing it hehe

You are right many people seem to think that Parelli is God or something, thses people become very closed minded and stuck up. Parelli solving medical issues is a new one to me lol.

The other problem people run into is being stuck in PNH lvl 1 (preschool) your skills in this lvl are very basic and mostly to do with ground games, very limmited. And most people are stuck in lvl 1 for years, and in some cases they never progress past it. It takes till about lvl 3 before you REALY see amazing results, I am learning lvl 2 atm and can't wait till I am ready for lvl 3. Here are a couple of my favoriate videos of a lvl 4 studend, and the second video of a girl practicing lvl 3, this is natural horsemanship at it's finest, enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow2yDdRK_Zc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqi0NlPvMEQ

Answer 4

Not everyone does. I certainly don't. Parelli is nothing more than negative training methods with a stick. If I used those methods to work my abuse case, he would shut down. I use clicker training which works wonderfully and doesn't utilize negative training or require anything more than a treat bag and your tongue to make the click sound. Parelli also says things that are absolutely not true. And everyone thinks that the answers are from the Gods! I watched one clinic about lead changes hoping to see something that would help with training the changes and he was doing nothing more than changing the horse over a cross pole. Wow! I think I learned that more than 30 years ago with hunter/jumpers. He also was just showing a body shift and said the horse would change. Puleezzzzeee! My horse doesn't care if you shift your weight from here to eternity if he doesn't understand what you're asking. He'll simply try to rebalance under you. Most of the training methods I see with NHT is run the horse until exhausted and then ride. Of course the horse will be exactly the same the next day....except more traumatized.

Answer 5

Most of the points I would make have already been made but I wanted to put my two cents in anyway.

I don't think that Parelli can fix EVERYTHING with EVERY horse; I don't think that ANY ONE training program can fix ALL problems with all horses either. I think that you need to mix and match training styles that not only fit your horse but that also fit you.

However, that said, my mom has a horse that has made a 180 degree turn around with the use of some natural horsemanship work. It is not the only training technique we will use but it is helping us reteach the basics.

Answer 6

(*bangs head on desk mumbling about Xenophon*)

I LOVE NH, that being said I do NOT love people who think they have secrets and systems they can sell for big money. If you want an audience market yourself as an entertainer.

ANYONE can learn "natural horsemanship" and every rider can benefit from trying to get to know their horse, but no one way is ever THE way for everyone.

I have not tried or studied Parelli. I DO think that there are many problems that can be solved by a rider trying to see things from their horse's perspective and knowing that horse's personality traits. I think even more problems can be solved with simple mileage, getting out to the barn once a week for 1 hr is not enough time to spend with a horse you have supposedly taken on responsibility for, IMHO. However I don't think the above is limited to studying Parelli.

Natural Horsemanship and Classical Dressage are close cousins, and all of it is based upon practices thousands of years old.

Answer 7

Well nothing works for every horse, Parelli says that himself. It is the theory behind it that works wonders. You really do need a good relationship with your horse in order for anything to work. I think people are turned off because it seems too good to be true, or because it is expensive. If you are not getting results it's probably because you are not putting in the time. Parelli takes tons of dedicated time, but it does provide good results.

Wll apparently I'm not getting Best Answer lol which is fine. I think there was a misunderstanding and maybe Parelli works better with certain personality types. I am very laid back and patient. I really never get mad or lose my cool and people comment on this all the time, so I RARELY have problems with any horse.

Parelli is really dear to my heart because in Jan 07 I got into a really bad horse accident where a 18hand Russian Arab I was riding got scared of a cow (yeah a regular horse eating cow haha) and threw me hard. I fell off, and got a really bad concussion and ligaments in my neck were damaged. I was unconcious for a while and I still have brain problems associated with it. Parelli really helped me to regain confidence with my other horses and to build a really strong relationship. That's the most important thing that Parelli brings to the table. I don't ever want to ride with one reign or *gasp* no reigns and I ride really well, I started at age 4 and I'm 23 now, so I really know how to ride english and western well, but the relationship part is what I charish. I'm currently working on level 2 and it really is wonderful for building a healthy relationship. I can see the personalities of my beautiful palomino mare better and she is truly the love of my life. She responds very well to the parelli program and does not respond well to any type of force.

Like any program though, Parelli requires an open mind and I don't really think it is a catch all for every horse. Everyone has their preferred method though.

Answer 8

There is no substitute for hard work and long years of learning about horses. If all of the "guru" systems worked, then the horse professionals would be out of business. I have seen to many of the Parelli followers make total nut jobs out of their horses and then wonder what went wrong. (must be the horse, not their lack of knowledge, they watched all of the tapes). I show with one of them and it is not fun to be in the same western pleasure class while her horse is bucking past you. Then she has the nerve to tell me that my horse (who kicks her butt everytime) needs to be taught the Parelli games to make him a better horse. Yep, he (who has Superiors in heading, heeling, steer stopping, and western pleasure, plus ROMs in halter and showmanship AND does leadline or walk trot with any kid who wants to climb aboard) at age 7, needs to be taught the games that have made her horse so wonderful (he could qualify for the NFR as a saddle bronc). Parelli and all of the others may have some good things in their clinics, but unless you can go home and get on an unbroke horse in an hour, then the methods do not really work. They are designed to impress the uninformed, offer "microwave" horse training (done in a minute or less), and make the mortgage payments on their ranchs. If I want to play games I have a dog that will fetch. I do not want my horse doing this. I ahve heard more trainers laugh about this guy. They think he is a joke. Theonly good they say is that he keeps them in business fixing all of the spoiled horses he produces.
And to Rhinestone: Your Parelli guy took 3 HOURS to load your horse? How impressive do you think that is? You could have done the same thing yourself. I would have run him off after the first hour. Think about this. Do you have three hours everytime you want to go somewhere? Because that is what your horse has learned now, trauma or not.
JMO

Answer 9

A lot of people today are looking for a quick fix, and they latch on to a trainer because it makes them think they can achieve the same thing with their horse, making them as good a horseman as the trainer. Another thing, I think teaching a horse Parelli's seven games is easier than solving real challenges like getting a horse to sidepass or take a correct lead. It's something inexperienced people can focus on and say "see what I can get my horse to do?" Parelli gives a lot of folks false confidence because they think they are good trainers because their horse will follow them around and "play". Another reason why people flock to Parelli is because it's like being able to say you're friends with a celebrity. You'll notice them always saying "I'm a level 2 Parelli student" or whatever...it's a status symbol in the equine world.

I don't buy into that stuff. I have a good friend who knows horses inside and out, and he has pointed out some things about some of the top TV trainers that don't ring true. I'm not saying Parelli doesn't know anything about horses; I think he is a good horseman. But I don't like his greedy Savvy Club program, and I don't think he is truly giving half the money's worth to his students and clinic attendees. It's a fun show, but I don't think people come away from there with much deep horse knowledge. That's my opinion on Parelli.

Edit: To Rhinestone, I just have a quick note to add. I'm very glad that you found help for your horse that was traumatized about loading into a trailer. However, the methods of trailer loading used by the trainer who succeeded are not anything new, nor are they used exclusively by Pat Parelli. Trainers worldwide know and use this same method (believe me, I watch the TV trainers, and I have seen the same methods twenty years ago by different trainers) and it isn't magic, you don't have to be a Parelli trainer to achieve the same result.

Answer 10

Trust me I know what you mean. There was a lady wear i used to ride who was parelli phsyco. She told a lady who i know that if she didn't do parelli with her horse then she would die. I do not believe this one bit. The lady who said this had pretty calm horses because of the Parelli. However I think that honestly it is just a way of training and it is a plan that you stick with. True that parelli does not fix everything, however it does help with issues.

Answer 11

I dont use the parelli methods - although i like them.
I consider them alot more kind than starting a 3 year old in a ported shank..

I have never used it, but i meet lots of horses who have gone through the program and are flawless horses.

Im sure it all depends on how sensitive the horse is etc. Sensitive horses tend to go further in parelli.