Your opinion on Parelli

If you have a dangerous, aggressive animal on your farm, you need to get professional help from a really experienced trainer. If you have a horse that is charging, attacking, and threatening to kill anyone who enters his paddock, I guarantee you that laying a stripe across his ass with a whip WILL NOT FIX IT. If you try to pick a fight with such a damaged horse, you will probably end up the loser. A horse like that is going to need major reform.

Was this horse spoiled from babyhood on? Sure, maybe. Did he need some strong training when he was young? Probably! But whipping him as an adult, damaged horse isn't likely to help.

When Buck dealt with the same situation, as I said earlier, he roped the horse's hind leg, then worked the pants off him in the round pen until he was tired. He put a rider on his back and worked the adrenaline and aggression off that horse. That horse looked changed at the end of that session. He eyes were soft, he was tired, and relaxed. Working a horse, and moving their feet gets you into their brain rather than whipping them and leaving whelts on their hide.

And you might think that horses fight and damage each other in the herd to establish dominance, and that is definitely true, but really extreme horses like that can and do fight to the death. Do you want to get into that kind of battle with a horse? I had a mare boarded one time who had to live ALONE because of her extreme aggression toward other horses. She shared a fence line with another mare for months, and they seemed to get along well. We finally decided to put the two mares together because they had formed a bond through the fence. Well, it took several people with whips to drive them apart after they darned near killed each other. They were tearing flesh off each other, and my mare had so many strained muscles in her hindquarters from kicking violently at the other mare, that she was lame and off work for about 6 months. It was horrible. If someone wasn't there to break them up, one of them would have killed the other. It was outright battle to the death aggression.

So if you have a horse that is THAT dangerous and dominant toward humans, I would not go in there with a whip picking a fight. You might get into a battle that you cannot finish. But that is our human nature - just whip and beat our way to the top. We let emotion get the better of us. You are feeling in danger and threatened by the horse so you want to get even. You want to protect yourself. You want to FIGHT BACK and teach that dirty rotten ________ a lesson!

But I would be willing to bet money your problem would only get worse.

The fact that horse is a Parelli trained horse means absolutely NOTHING. The Parelli program does not whatsoever endorse dominant, dangerous, aggressive behavior!! I watced Pat go toe to toe with my own mare and it was not pretty at times. He was NOT allowing her to dominate and run over him. Pat Parelli kicked my mare in the belly wit his boot toe because he was trying to defend himself. She was running him over and he finally said ENOUGH. STAY OUT OF MY SPACE.

That dangerous stallion in the Buck movie never was exposed to Parelli. I trim a mare who is borderline dangerous/aggressive, and she has been traitionally trained. That mare will come at you with TEETH and ears pinned. It's terrible.

Sure any training method can screw a horse up. But it's not the method itself. It's the person doing the applying of the method.

The fact is that while PP may not advocate a horse trying to be dominant the fact is that the vast majority for PP trained horses I have come across are dangerous and need a good lash across the rear side.

There is a difference between an aggressive dangerous horse who is that way naturally and one that is let to get away with it and it becomes a learned response. I find that there are very very few truly dangerous aggressive horses out there that are not human made.

I could easily see my stallion being one of them. He is the biggest baby anyone can ride him. However he has been trained very very well. When I moved back up here from Tn I had to board him. The barn manager at the one barn had little business running a barn little lone handling a stallion. She would let him get away with so much that he became dangerous to the vast majority of the people around. He was a baby with me as he knew he could not get away with it so there was nothing I could do to fix it but move him to a barn where the BM had a clue. Took her about 3 days to get it into his head that she was not going to put up with it. Have owned that horse for almost 20 years now and out side of that time he has never had a problem.

So sometimes the horse just need to find out that he will not be allowed to get away with it. Some times that means a good butt whoopin.

Padrona, I'm afraid you have not had the opportunity to work with a very aggressive horse. It's a long process and the first step is getting them scared of you again. Working the daylights out of them will get them tired, but not scared. I have dealt with many problem horses over the years that people have brought me. I had two untouched stallions that would try and attack you over the fence. I have a mare that chased her owner around the roundpen and tried to bite, kick and trample her. Roping a hind foot will work sometimes, but not always. You have to get those horses scared of you again, you have to put them back in their place and teach them that you control where their feet go. Because horses like that have absolutely no fear of humans, nor respect. You must get them in the roundpen, every time they even think of attacking, stripe them, hard. You want them to run away from you. Because a horse that is scared has all the respect in the world for humans. Then you start over with them and build a trusting relationship. I've never not been able to retrain an aggressive nasty horse using this method and frame of mind. They all ended up being respectful gentle horses.. Actually, to be 100% honest, one of these horses was a Parelli level three gelding that had lost ALL respect for his owner...

No matter who the trainer, human nature will find the faults with each one rather than the positive. Part of learning to train animals is also seeing what not to do whether it's intentional or not. Somtimes all you may learn is how to part with your money and get very little value for your dollar.

So very true .I have often joked that if God almighty himself came down as a horse trainer,someone would find fault!

Padrona, your so busy defending PP training, that you've missed my point.

The two year old at our barn was l a lovely little horse when he arrived, then the owners have dinked around with him PP training him that he has BECOME this way. He's annoyed, angry and doesn't know where he stands with people.

We don't need a professional trainer, the horse needs new owners and a butt kicking.

This horse was MADE this way, not born this way......big difference. This isNt my first encounter with a PP trained horse......the last two that were at our barn got told to leave because they were pushy, angry horses. The leaned on their stall doors, dragged their owners down the aisles, couldn't be controlled on a long line in the arena, pinned their ears and tried to bite people over their stall door.....they boarded at the barn, just like this two year old, they weren't there for training, so I got to see first hand what results PP training has. It got so bad with these two horses that no one wanted to ride in the arena while they were in there being played with.....

I'm done with this. I will never advocate PP training.

My thought on this, for what it's worth.

I have a friend who started with PP and was a great disciple for a while, she has since moved on and brought in things she has learned from other trainers, and she now sees the faults in the PP doctrine, and has kept what has helped her, and dropped the rest. I love having her help when I'm working with horses, we share ideas and are happy to adapt techniques to get something that works for a horse.

Another friend has not moved on, she is still very much guided by PP principles, she was going to 'cure' Ben of his loading issues, but before they even got near the trailer she had handed him back, poor lad was just so confused by what she was doing with him that he was threatening to go after her My normal sweet big fella was just a mess.

I learned there to go with my gut, and I should of stepped in as soon as I saw him getting stressed, the one BIG thing about any horse training, learn when to come on strong, and when to quit!

The problem with a clinic situation is there is an expectation of results from the crowd which places enormous pressure on the clinician. That in turn can affect his/her good judgement. Things may go badly and there will be regrets but what's done is done.

This is true with Clinitions like PP and CA and the like b/c that is their only job and source of income is through their clinics and selling their DVDs and such. I do not find this to be true when you go to a clinic put on by what I would consider a REAL PROVEN trainer. I do several clinics a year depending on how much extra cash I have. These clinics are put on by proven trainers who make their living in the real world of horse training. These clinics are normally put on by local affiliates as a source of making extra money for the affiliate. These trainers have nothing to prove and what they are passing on in these clinics is how they train the horses they show.

Yea, real trainers that come out every now and then to do a clinic is where you actually learn something, because they are doing it on a daily basis with client's horses in the barn. The celebrity guys just go on the road and don't do any hands on anymore, daily, with client's horses.