Warwick Schiller is doing a good job of rethinking what he practiced in NH/R-. He is very worth following on FB or looking up on YouTube. (his more recent stuff especially )
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I feel like natural horsemanship is a very vague and blanket term that doesnât always accurately describe the training methods someone is using. There are real scientific terms for different training methods that can be used instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning
People tend to associate all liberty work with ânatural horsemanshipâ, but the central training method of natural horsemanship is just negative reinforcement, sometimes with positive punishment mixed in. Many people like Warwick Schiller and Tik Maynard are starting to use positive reinforcement instead, finding that itâs more effective and provides better results. You can do liberty work with a horse using any one of these training methods.
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Iâve watched a Tik Maynard clinic that was held at my barn (both riding and ground work) and found him to have good, no-nonsense advice. Featherlight Horsemanship - Iâve only watched a few videos, and it looked just fine.
Iâll always remember my instructorsâ snippets of âwisdomâ from years ago:
- be consistent, always, every ride
- reward / praise good, desired behavior rather than punish bad behavior
- Make it so the horse thinks itâs his idea
- 90% of the time, the problem isnât your horse, itâs you
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Amen !
Sometimes I think itâs the owners who need a whack upside the head or some carrot stick.
This all makes me remember my last horse. He had apparently been NHâed at some point because one of the idiot trainerettes tried it on him and he absolutely blew a fuse and lost his marbles. And this horse HAD been abused. If you tried to touch his ears, he would freak out. I mean, eyes bulging, sheer terror. I found out later that one of the âtrainersâ he had had the misfortune to encounter was fond of clocking the horses in the head when they âmisbehavedâ and/or grabbing the reins so she could beat them. Also, he had been eared for clipping in one of the show barns he had been at. I was able to touch his ears twice in all my time with him: once when he was tranked for another procedure and again after he had died.
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a catttle sorting stick.
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not just the Queen.
He worked with a German Derby contender at the time. He was successful with the problem at hand (but other issues arose, having nothing to do with the horse training)
The stallion went to England for studâŠLomitas.
Parelli? Nuff said.
I saw some of the training videos. My late dad would have taken the carrot stck and put welds on my legs, and snapped my arse with the bull snap lead rope!
It used to be more common, oh, 10 years ago, the Savvy Club, and suchâŠyeah, tose guys can wreck a horse.
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I managed to avoid the NH crowd when I bought my horse in 2001. It was the era when too many devoted Parelli followers spent so much time doing his âgames.â Did they ever learn to ride? A few probably did, but most of them seemed to practice bopping their horseâs muzzle by waving the lead rope up and down asking them to back up. It had a huge Parelli-approved snap attached to the lead rope and you could see the horse getting upset.
I liked John Lyons and still do, as well as Julie Goodnight. John does not like to be being referred as an NH type. His program is âconditioned response.â He had a website with a good discussion board where you could learn quite a bit. Same as COTH. In the evenings it functioned as a live discussion board. A level 2 âcertified Parelli trainerâ could make you a level 1 certified Parelli trainer. You and your horse had to travel Johnâs Colorado ranch for several 2-week long sessions to earn a certificate. I spent some time working with a John Lyonâs certified trainer and she was excellent.
Some of the concepts you learn are go-forward," 3-second rule, break things down into small steps, put a lesson plan together, reward them. If a horse has a problem like a hole in their training go back to something that works and start over. Repetitions are important. So is praise. I see NH trainers rubbing their horses necks and rewarding them while their students stand there doing nothing. They never talk about how and why horses function and learn the way they do.
We had a new boarder, a girl, 14 or 15, who had a really nice Mustang mare. Every once in a while I will tell a struggling teenager that Iâm 70+ and Iâve learned a lot over many years. Then ask if I can give them some hints that could help. This girl said she wanted her horse to stand quietly in cross ties. Her horse was confused. She was moving her butt all over the place but never had a chance to stand quietly. We talked about why her horse was getting confused and the 3-second attention span. Then I told her to ignore the stuff she didnât want unless it could be dangerous, e.g. biting, kicking. Reward what you do want - love on her. A few days later her horse was standing quietly and she could walk away few steps. Next time I saw them alone in indoor they were standing quietly. They looked great together. Her butt was glued to the saddle at the canter. She asked about using yarn reins - absolutely. She was very soft following her horseâs movements and much softer on the ground without her horse.
I get questions from time to time about how I trained my horse to so many neat things. Someone chimes in: âtheyâve been together 20 yearsâ. Thatâs not it. For the entire 20 years Iâve been telling him heâs a good boy. Ignore what you donât like. They need repetitions. If you always do something exactly the same way they usually figure it out. Bopping them on the head and yelling âdonât do thatâ is useless. Be patient. Stay calm inside even if you are pissed off. My horse stands absolutely straight at the mounting ramp. He knows when he is doing a therapy lesson. I revived one I forgot: a light hand on the noseband says head down and be chill. His free fecal water is almost gone. He figured out if spreads his back legs apart I will clean inside his thighs. I did a lousy job last Thursday. I went to his head. When I showed up by his butt he opened it up so I could finish.
Iâm a casual rider. I like to tell people I try not to go beyond 15-30 seconds of âformalâ planned training. Be consistent and patient. They will figure things out if you donât confuse or aggravate them. Those are repetitions. You can do 200 repetitions in 200 hundred days or 200 repetitions in 100 days or 200 repetitions in 20 days. A lot of what appears above fits into this technique. Lyons, not Parelli, not NH. Say good boy/girl if they do a nice transition. Donât pause. Donât forget. Keep saying it and you probably will get a better horse.
The best piece of training advice on Lyonsâ board came up from time to time. A wife would complain about her husband. Experienced people (Iâm not one of them) said you can use John Lyonsâ method for the husband exactly the same way you do for your horse. Remember to start on page 1 in the ground control manual. Be patient. Repetitions. Remember to say âgood boy.â
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I honestly have never found that NH has been all that beneficial regardless of the horse or trainer. Maybe itâs just those specific horses so YMMV but I was never really able to get into it for the same reasons that youâve mentioned. Pretty much every horse became more stressed and borderline explosive even with respected trainers unfortunately so I think it just isnât always the right tool. Anyway, Iâm glad your horse is returning back to his normal self!
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I too am happy you are finding what helps the two of you click!
I was once an unwilling participant in a Parelli type session with a school pony.
After making the horse trot around us while we stood still, we were supposed to stop it, and then if it came into âour spaceâ we had to send it backward via some move Iâve forgotten because I didnât care then or now. Well, school pony was perfectly fine chilling there so I was like âGood ponyâ and stood around waiting.
The instructor asked me why I wasnât doing anything and I said:
âOh, heâs just standing here and not getting near me. I thought that was the point?â
Instructor: âWell get into his space and then make him back up!â
Cue my confusion: âSo, heâs standing there fine and as a reward I get up in his business and force him away?â They did not like that. Lol.
Iâve only ever seen the unwashed masses doing NH and they are mostly terrible. The high level, overarching principles are great. Itâs just the people implementing them are⊠idiots.
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I once got sucked into the Pat Parelli thing for a very short while. I was taking my horse up to a certified parelli trainer and he was doing the work, I wasnât. Most of it was fairly useful (except for the music at ear damaging decibels) and no bopping him on the jaw went on. But when he started riding he wanted to start teaching him to ride at liberty and would whack him on the side of his head with his carrot stick to make him turn. Well, that was the end of that! Never went back.
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You know, think things like that figure 8 at liberty video and techniques advocating stepping directly into a loose horseâs space towards the head to make him back up should be subtitled âHow to get kicked in the head by confused horsesâ.
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Several years ago, my Morgan and I spent some time in CO with Mark Rashid. Not once did we ever work in a round pen, with a flag or a carrot stick. We did, however, practice listening to the horse, softness, body language and communication and yeah I definitely did ride (we worked out all the kinks in my flying changes with that horse). That clinic taught me more about how to think through training than all the 100âs of lessons Iâve had- everywhere from backyard barns as a kid to Olympians. I hate that fools like Parelli are what come to mind when people hear natural horsemanship- itâs saying you think all restaurants are gross because youâve eaten at a McDonalds.
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i agree with the person who said upthread that she didnât consider John Lyons an NH practitioner. I learned a lot from him, and he once spent an entire break at a symposium coming up with solutions for my daughterâs bolting pony. I think his methods work well because they are tuned into how the horse is viewing what is asked of him/her.
Rebecca
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An acquaintance of mine was very much into John Lyons when he was in his heyday; went to a JL certified trainer once a month; only practiced JL methods, etc. The listen to the horse thing I think she took a little too far when she and a couple of others were on a trail ride in the mountains where she was in the lead. They ran into bees and her friends are yelling at her to run, but she continued to amble along at a walk. When they were clear of the bees, friends asked her why didnât she pick up the pace, she said she didnât know if her horse wanted to. 
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This, to me, is the crux of the issue with a lot of Natural Horsemanship type practicioners - they learn something and know the practice but not the idealology behind it.
You get a horse out of your space to show you are the alpha in a herd - watch herd behavior, the more dominant horse will shoo away others sometimes. BUT not ALL THE TIME! They do it when they think the other one is being rude, pushy, mean, or maybe the alpha is in a bad moodâŠ
But they will also allow others into their space. In the above scenario, the pony was not being rude or pushy, had no reason to be shooed away. John Lyons does a bit of chasing as well, but the goal is not to run the horse ragged or constantly keep the horse away, but to get the horse to see you as the boss, as someone to look to for safety, as herd leader.
One or two turns in the roundpen should be all it takes. Do not run the horse ragged, do not constantly chase whenever the horse gets within 5 feet of you - if the horse starts looking towards you for safety/companionship, allow it to come to you!
GUH!
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well, the problem is they are trying to sell a formula when there is none in horse training.
I am still getting hot under the collar though when I consider the Parelli videos.
A lot of the things they sold were abusive and quite dangerous!
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First time I encountered one I literally thought it was a repurposed gold club! What an unfortunate name, too. In cartoons animals are meant to go toward the carrot on a stick.
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