SandyM - I hate to break it to you, but I joined up before you joined up, neaner, neaner, neaner. When I was a kid I was told to always walk the last mile home after a hunt.
My little mare was so darned ready for her supper, she just joined up and followed me home like a lost puppy. My brother and I used to play with the horses by having them follow us around and not get distracated by the other horse following its owner.
I have found the “friendly game” i.e. approach and retreat, the BEST method for a horse who is difficult to de-worm. I just used it today, on two horses.
But I don’t like it when the really hardcore NHr’s think I shouldn’t ride my horse because he isn’t absolutely perfect on the ground and I use things like cross-ties and stud chains sometimes.
hmmm
I have some questions about NH while it’s on the board:
- What’s the point of the bag? Are you sacking out? If so, why the same old bag? I use a homemade liverpool(blue raft with water on it), pinwheels, flowers, blankets,… @my jumps. Do you continually get a reaction from the bag?
- If the bag and stick is to move your horse around, why not just use a conventional tool?? Dressage whips do work and won’t bother other horses. Common courtesy has been THE Horsemanship essential for centuries.It is necessary. When I go to a show, I leave my donkey at home- for everyone’s safety.
- Lastly, why is a bit so undesirable to so many NH people? Many hunter riders spend FOREVER learning not to pull. Many dressage riders use an image of holding baby birds in their hands to develop light and quiet hands. How does a hackamore or rope halter trump this??
I don’t dislike NH altogether, just the blind following it seems to collect. I saw one or two things at a Clinton Anderson (yes, I went) clinic. One thing I particuarly appreciated was the way he looked in his Wranglers! I would LOVE to hire him to work on my farm!LOL!
Why do you CARE what someone calls it? :rolleyes: Why call someting a piaffe or passage? It’s a short term to describe something. Why call something the American System of Forward Riding? It’s a term to describe a particular approach to a training system. Why call something Classical Dressage?
[quote=Blackberry Farm;4225320]I have some questions about NH while it’s on the board:
- What’s the point of the bag? Are you sacking out? If so, why the same old bag? I use a homemade liverpool(blue raft with water on it), pinwheels, flowers, blankets,… @my jumps. Do you continually get a reaction from the bag?
[/quote]
yes, it’s a desensitization/sacking out tool. Done CORRECTLY, that process involves more than just a plastic bag. It’s just an easy tool to use because everyone has one. Your liver pool is not exactly a sacking out tool, because you cannot put it on/over/around the horse. Sacking out is a process that really involves things on/around/over/under the horse, touching him, waiving around him, making noise in the process for some tools. Other things, like your liver pool, are part of a similar process, done preferable after the horse is well sacked out.
And no, you should not continually get a reacton from the bag. If you do, you’re not doing it right. The goal of sacking out is for the “thing” to be doing the work, while the human is ho-hum, so that the horse learns that he takes his cue from his handler. The bag (or whatever else you’re using) should become a non-issue for the horse - ignore it. So, if that’s your goal as the “same reaction”, then yes, you should get that all the time 
- If the bag and stick is to move your horse around, why not just use a conventional tool?? Dressage whips do work and won’t bother other horses.
Don’t pin that on NH Countless people at countless WB inspections goose their horses around with a plastic bag on the end of a whip to get the horse going. Now, people who think they are sacking out their horse by chasing him with a bag until the horse gets tired and stops are not going about sacking out correctly. The goal is NOT to rile the horse up, and that applies regardless of what you’re calling your method. Studies have been done that show that horses who are allowed to acclimate to a “thing” do so much more quickly and with longer lasting results of their exposure to the thing is gradual and never causes the horse to invoke his flight reflex. The more a horse practices something, the more ingrained it becomes, so WHY invoke the flight process?
[quot]Common courtesy has been THE Horsemanship essential for centuries.It is necessary. When I go to a show, I leave my donkey at home- for everyone’s safety.
[/quote]
Well sure, and that should go without saying, regardless of discipline.
- Lastly, why is a bit so undesirable to so many NH people?
This is where your understanding of NH is lacking, which is part of my whole point on this thread. The bit is NOT undesirable. There are many NH-proper folks who start horses in loosering snaffles. Those who don’t usually quickly move to one after the horse has learned proper responses to pressure in a rope halter. The point of not using a bit for some of these programs is for the human so that (while a NH guru would probably never say this out loud to a student in public) the uneducated riders, the beginner riders, never have a chance to react by pulling on the horse’s mouth.
Many hunter riders spend FOREVER learning not to pull. Many dressage riders use an image of holding baby birds in their hands to develop light and quiet hands. How does a hackamore or rope halter trump this??
And many of those folks spend hours on a lunge line with their reins taken away, using a grab strap so they can learn their own balance without punishing the horse - same deal. Once the rider has balance, then an educated rider can use a rope halter to put some education on a more difficult horse without having to haul on his mouth. Using a rope halter is not to teach the rider to have light hands - it’s to save the horse’s mouth for a variety of reasons.
I don’t dislike NH altogether, just the blind following it seems to collect. I saw one or two things at a Clinton Anderson (yes, I went) clinic. One thing I particuarly appreciated was the way he looked in his and Wranglers!
And ANY discipline has lots of blind following lots of blind. Look right on this forum about the “trainer” leaving whip welts on the horse :rolleyes: NH absolutely does not have the market cornered on idiocy.
To the original post- we can go on and on about how annoying NH is, how wrong HJ is, how stuck up DQ’s are. But at the end of the day, you are responsible for training your horse. You can choose to leave your barn and find a place with no Parelli. That’s what I did. It’s great.
BUT, at the end of the day, you can not control the environment you work with your horse in if you board. Today’s NHer with a plastic bag is tomorrows boarder with a herding dog that “causes no trouble sosorryheisnippingyourhorse” is next week’s excited newbie lesson kid running down the aisle is next months week long brush clearing next to the ring. It’s up to you to teach your horse how to respond to the sight of someone “desensitizing” a horse. It’s not up to them to sit quietly and act like a DQ when you are handling your horse.
You said your horse freaked when their horses started running? Well, if you ride at my barn, on days my horse may well come flying by the ring bucking and riling up the geldings who then go flying. You’d best get your lesson horse used to horses running in a field if working next to the field is in order.
Why would the games be the reason your horse did not get caught? Do you think that if at the same time I was riding and say, crashed into a jump that your horse would not have been alarmed- granted- when we are challenged, we don’t need a comment.
I mean, it goes on - pages of getting after basically novice horse people for trying to learn. Yes, the attitude of some “followers” is stunningly hilarious. But we have met people in all disciplines how are the only truly correct horse people and let you know. Enjoy your horse. Realize people and horses do unexpected things. Work to the best of your abilities to get your horse acclimated to the unexpected.
Wow Magnolia, you managed to convey everything I was trying to say in my several posts in just one succinct post!
Yeah, what you said :winkgrin:
We can make it more succinct. All disciplines have self important people who know all and have the capacity to do things that will bother your horse. You need to deal with them or buy your own property with a very giant buffer.
There’s a point where magnolia becomes wrong. It is incredibly irresponsible to spook a beginner’s horse simply to teach him how ignorant and incompetent he is and how much more skilled and knowledgeable you are.
It is wrong to impose your ideas of how other people should handle and ride their horses in a public area. You don’t gallop up on someone, watch them fall off and get a traumatic brain injury, and say ‘wimp, i can ride better than you and my horse is better trained than yours’.
If your ideas are so rigid, leave and start your own barn, and populate it with people who agree with you and like the stuff you do and want to do same.
In a public boarding barn, be quiet, don’t be proud of startling, frightening or disturbing other people and ‘teaching them a lesson’ that you are so much better than they. There are beginners at barns, older folks, little kids, people putting 2 year old babies with no helmets (forget the lecture, there is ignorance everywhere, your job is to NOT to contribute additional danger to the situation) up on horses, people who are overmounted, people who have poorly trained horses or are simply weak riders themselves. Leave them alone. Don’t do things that frighten them or make them uncomfortable or tense. Their riding is supposed to be at least a little bit fun.
Ride your horse and leave others alone, keep your special equipment that their horses aren’t used to at home, and keep your philosophies to yourself. It is ridiculously irresponsible to do otherwise. Barns have a clientele and at each barn different kinds of practices are acceptable. If you don"t like the barn, leave.
There’s a point where magnolia becomes wrong. It is incredibly irresponsible to spook a beginner’s horse simply to teach him how ignorant and incompetent he is and how much more skilled and knowledgeable you are.
Maybe I missed the part where the OP mentioned that the NHers stood behind a tree shaking bags sneakily as she rode by? Are they really, purposefully trying to scare her horse? Of course, you should not purposefully do things with the intention of scaring another person’s horse.
Boarding barns that allow multiple disciplines will expose your horse to new situations. Is it any worse to have a Parelli shaking a bag while you practice 20 meter circles than to have a western pleasure rider dealing with someone schooling a jump course? My old horse was scared shitless of saddlebreds- should they be disallowed because they move funny? Should turnout at my barn be disallowed since the horses may play and scare the lesson horses?
Ugh, I have these boarders at my barn.
If I understand correctly, the OP owns this facility. Therefore, I suggest she invites them to leave.
Her place, her rules!
[QUOTE=Foxtrot’s;4225129]
SandyM - I hate to break it to you, but I joined up before you joined up, neaner, neaner, neaner. When I was a kid I was told to always walk the last mile home after a hunt.
My little mare was so darned ready for her supper, she just joined up and followed me home like a lost puppy. My brother and I used to play with the horses by having them follow us around and not get distracated by the other horse following its owner.[/QUOTE]
LOL!!Neener,neener right backatcha: YOU didn’t think to MARKET it either.;o) We were both oblivious of our innate talent as NH gurus!!
It is incredibly irresponsible to spook a beginner’s horse simply to teach him how ignorant and incompetent he is and how much more skilled and knowledgeable you are.
I completely agree. If you’re at a public boarding facility, you must take into consideration other people that are there. They might be riding a green horse that hasn’t been under saddle very long. This actually happened where I boarded-there were a group of people that loved to ‘cowboy’ their horses around, a woman was riding her ‘green’ horse, and these people came galloping up past her, the horse spooked-threw her into a metal barrel, fracturing her back. Took her months to recuperate from it. I don’t care what training method you do-just be respectful of others.
Maybe not, but it can be a lot of fun.
Exactly. I’m not BASHING Parelli or NH. They have the right idea, but what is it about Parelli people or many (not all) NH people in general preaching all the time?
For those of you who think I’m attacking Chris Cox, I am not. From what I’ve heard, he trys to distance himself from the “Natural Horsemanship” movement.
JB - I plan to introduce bags and tarps and such to my young horse and also to my lesson horse. I’m irritated at the fact that they were endangering my student. Yes, obviously my lesson horse reacted to the bags, therefore, he needs some more desensitization. However, right before a beginner riding lesson is NOT the time for it. There is a time and a place for plastic-bag-on-a-stick waiving. BTW - I liked the “I’m an equal opportunity basher” comment. 
slc2- I almost cried reading your post about inventing a new NH guru!! LOL :lol:
Sandy - if we don’t stop using that “join-up” word we will get a cease and desist letter from some copywrite lawyer hired by Mr Roberts.
Not just in barns - it is plain good manners to ensure the safety of otheres whether at the barn, on the trail, or wherever. And to be considerate when someone is schooling and trying to get the best out of their horse.
A man on the trails came galloping past me and another friend on a young horse. I indicated to him to slow down with my hand. He slowed long enough to say that if we couldn’t control our horses we shouldn’t be there. My friend’s horse, actually, took it in stride, but that is besides the point. You never know who you are approaching and the proper thing to do is slow to a walk and pass by with a courteous word.
I got so mad, I turned my horse and galloped after him, only catching up to him in the parking lot and gave him my point of view. Then returned to my friend. Later a couple came by and said I had caused quite a few snickers in the parking lot, but that he had needed to be taught some manners. It is very unlike me to be so assertive, but he just looked like an accident waiting to happen and was very rude.
Right on, Foxtrot’s!
Agree. But let’s not confuse the issue of what is dangerous behavior, and what is relatively benign behavior that is simply upsetting your horse.
This isn’t aimed at you, and I’m not saying you think they are one and the same
But both issues are being discussed here, and some seem to think they are the same. It’s very rude to come galloping up behind someone, whom you don’t know, on a trail. But there is also just regular life that happens. As Magnolia said, what bothers someone today might be something they can request stop occurring, but it might not be. So, as best you can, given the circumstances, strive to treat everything as something you cannot control, and figure out how to deal with it. If that day’s planned schooling is scrapped because it turns into a desensitization session, that only helps you and the horse.
I was taking a lesson a few years ago, in a ring that was part of a barn that was part of a neighborhood community. In the middle of the lesson, some kids came out and started play tennis next door. That was training opportunity 1 for me. Next (either that day, or another day, not sure) a lady got out of a truck with arms full of tied together balloons, to tie on the perimeter fence to mark some party in the clubhouse. Yeah, Rio got pretty upset, and the lady was actually nice enough to notice and ask if I wanted her to take the balloons down. No, thanks, we’ll deal with it And we did, and he got over it, and it was another lesson for him that weird stuff happens and he won’t die.
I also took him to a schooling show at a new place, and the owners lived on the property. To get from the trailer area to the show ring, one had to traipse through their “back yard”. In it was a little trampline, and a hammock. The trampoline was fine - my neighbors have one that is regularly used, so no biggie. The hammock though - :eek: :lol: Could i have asked them to stop? Sure. Wouldn’t have solved a thing for me next time. So, we did a little “pay attention to me” schooling right there, and the walk back by them after the classes was uneventful (ok maybe a hairy eyeball their way :lol:)
I’m wondering if you know how much these people knew that there was a person in the other field, or what exactly was going on in the other field. Was anything said? Were they asked to put the sticks away because a beginner student was out there?
Not knowing the lay of your land, I’m not sure if there is a hill that could have hidden your student, how close the gates are, etc. Honestly, I never pay attention to what’s going on in other fields while I am getting my mare out of her field. I have no reason to worry about it, it is not my problem what they are doing.
Also, the lesson horse is free and unless he has a habit of running over people, there is little danger to the student. She also has the option to leave the field and possibly come get you to help. Could she have accidentally been run over by this horse? Possibly. Could she have accidentally be run over by him while leading him in and he spooks at a squirrel or a plastic bag being blown across his path? Entirely possible.
While the comments stated by these boarders may have annoyed you while your horse was running around. He may have initially run off because the boarders were ‘swinging ropes’, but since he then decided not to come near you at all when there was no other stimulus (as stated by yourself), really the boarders actions do not seem to be that much of a determination of your horse’s actions. It seems like he just needs more ground training. Do the boarders know about this horse’s situation? Were they asked to stand back and be still because this horse is still working on his manners?
Unless these boarders were following you around the field, they were a good distance away when your horse ran off. They were also a decent distance away when the lesson horse started running. To me, that means these horses are far to reactive. If these horses were mine, I would work on better desensitization and ground manners. I would not want a beginner with confidence issues to go out and get a horse that likely to get riled up over something in another field - what would happen if a bag came blowing into the field while she was getting him?
While being annoyed at people is a part of being human, the fact that the rant is titled ‘natural horsemanship…grr!’ and the initial post lumps all natural horseman methods into one category, leads the writer to appear discriminatory against people using Natural Horsemanship methods. The one sentence disclaimer reminds me of big companies saying they support the military - lip service and nothing else. Try to get a job there as a Reservist and watch the door close so fast you can feel the wind, nice support. Nice ‘appreciation for Natural Horsemanship’.
No one has any right to decide how someone should ride or what they should put up with or what their horse should be exposed to, in a public stable.
There is no difference between dangerous and ‘mildly upsetting’ the horse; you have no idea when the latter will evolve into the former. It is not anyone’s business to foist their riding style on anyone else.
I already took my pony out of one boarding barn because an NHie took it upon himself to go into his stall and ‘train’ him. It is not anyone else’s decision; leave other people and their horses alone.
