I would like to take the opportunity to comment on the Parelli system, but also to go into some deeper problems when the combination of humans and horses are concerned (I apologize for the length of this thread beforehand, but I want to be nuanced in my statements and provide ample argumentations to my views rather than making some statements out of the blue). Although I now work as a professional historian, in a previous life, I worked as an evolutionary biologist with a specific interest in behavioural ecology (quite a transition, isn?t it). Consequently, I have always looked to horses in quite a different way and looked for systems who, in one way or another, were complementary to my view. Surely, my professional biological work never had anything to do with horse behaviour, but you can imagine that one get?s a nose for trying to unravel behavioural patterns in all species one encounters. Because I was also riding and always had a close relationship to horses, I could apply my general behavioural knowledge to horses themselves.
Before I get to the issue of the Parelli system, I want some wrong statements, which were quoted on this site or others, out of the way. Firstly, it is true that ?natural horsemanship? is a branded term. It is used to coin a certain way of dealing with horses and you will not find the term being used before the twentieth century. On the other hand, it is wrong to stress that human-horse relationships are artificial or not natural, because horses need to be in the wild. Such a statement leads us to forget that horses are basically domesticated animals and have been so for thousands of years. True wild horses, leaving out some disputable exceptions such as the prezwalski horse, are regretfully not around anymore. For sure, some people will refer to wild mustangs herds, roaming the North-Amarican plains, as being wild horses, but they are actually domesticated horses which have survived in a natural environment again. This being said, we must not forget that still a lot of the original instincts are still present in horses, but those instincts are bendable for horses to enter in a relationship with humans. This flexibility is the product of thousands of years of breading and domesticating the original wild horse.
This brings me to a second point, where my expertise as a historian proves valuable. What the Parelli system does, as most of the so-called natural horseman?s systems, is in fact not new at all. When looking at historical sources, you might discover that a lot of the basic ideologies expressed by natural horsemanship nowadays, was already present for a long time. Surely, the concrete way of applying them may differ in their details, but a lot of principles can be found in such sources. Popular amongst natural horsemen and ?women is for instance Xenophon, who speaks of many methods which can also be found within natural horsemanship, but are in fact also applied by many experienced, professional and conventional (I do not like the word ?traditional?, because in my historical opinion natural horsemanship seems more traditional than a lot of the modern uses) trainers.
Breaking-in is a formidable example of such a process and a typical American I might add. To break in a horse, with its quite aggressive connotation, is a term which is mostly used in Western language. To demonstrate the contrast, let me present you with the Dutch word: zadelmak maken, translated in English this would be something like saddle taming, a word with quite a different connotation, wouldn?t you say. It signifies a more gradual process in getting a horse to get used to a saddle, which in fact renders the western method to be the more exceptional. Adding to this argument, is the work of king Edward of Portugal written in the fifteenth century, who carefully explains the gradual appliance of the saddle to the horse and, of course in another kind of terminology, describes a method that nowadays would be called light-riding (which is a non-exclusive component of the Parelli free-style savvy).
Returning to the main question at hand, what to make of the Parelli system? Let?s even extend that question to what to make of natural horsemanship in general? In my opinion, natural horsemanship is an essential evolution within a world, where more and more people are getting the ability to get in touch with horses, but have less and less time to get in touch with horses and are more and more encouraged to think in a ?mechanical? way. Natural horsemanship is actually nothing new than the good horsemanship of the old days, now applied to new necessities of our modern way of living and our modern way of thinking. Within the development of such a natural horsemanship, Pat Parelli has made an invaluable contribution. Even if his system has disappointed some people, it has helped a great deal of other people and, what is more, it led to discussions as the one we are having right now.
But what differentiates the Pat Parelli from other great horsemen or natural horsemen. Is it his great talent as a natural horseman? For sure, this is one of the aspects. However, there are even greater men around there (one of the greatest is Jean-Francois Pignot in my opinion, just watch ). Where the difference lies is that Pat, together with Linda Parelli?s consumer-customer experience, has successfully attempted to work out a system that can be taught to a great deal of people. And therein also lies the problem with the Parelli system. Such a system enables people with different levels of experience to engage in horse training, and those people often expect quick results and ?mechanical? answers to their own horse problems. Next to that, people often want to read in the system what they like to read. The great trouble with the failing of Parelli for a lot of horse enthusiasts has quite often nothing to do with the system on itself, but more with the way people approach the system and how people read the system. Adding to this problem, could be the fact, and this is something which Parelli enthusiasts need to recognise, is that Parelli has become (and probably always was) a commercial enterprise. Sometimes, more exception than rule, you will encounter people being disappointed by official Parelli instructors. In such cases, I suspect the commercial nature of Parelli being one of the problems. People have to pay to become a member of the Parelli community, then they have to pay to get de DVD?s to enter the program, then they have to pay for taking ?auditions? so they can be officially recognised as level 1-4 horsemen and then they have to pay to enter the instructor?s program. In other words, people willing to become a Parelli instructor have to make a considerable investment and, consequently, one cannot be too finicky about their abilities to help others with their problems. Nonetheless, as far as I am able to scope, I must say that most of these people are quite able to undertake their tasks, perhaps only failing when working with severe problem horses.
Let?s leave behind the commercial argument, which I will not consider right here (because in the end everyone is free to start with the Parelli program or not), and get to the key issues of the program. One of the most heard arguments against the Parelli system is either the creation of problem horses by the system or the boredom or frustration that the system renders. Let me begin with the first problem, the creation of problem behaviour with horses. In my opinion, this problem lies with two important reasons, one which is indirectly created by the success of the program, the other with people not paying attention to what is actually taught within the program.
What the program does in terms of animal behaviour is first the acceptance of humans as being not a threat to them. This is actually a very good lesson, the more because it focuses on general methods in giving horses a safe feeling. The so-called ?friendly game?, which in later levels gets extended to the ?extreme friendly game?, is nothing more than a very intelligible work that is often looked over in conventional training methods. ?Extreme friendly game?, for instance, is nothing new or revolutionary. It has long been used by the mounted police force in training their horses to be comfortable in the most extreme situations. What is more, this first simple game of the Parelli method demonstrates the invaluable asset of implying behavioural methods into training programs. The so-called ?approach-retreat? system is an excellent example thereof and essentially the best method to train a horse to learn to adapt to all kinds of variable situations.
The trouble that however originates from such an approach is that many horses get to feel really comfortable being around with humans, in a way they accept humans as being part of their interspecies flock. But this also means that this confident ?left-brain? horse is now going to apply other instincts on his human companion. Off course, this does not go for all horses, but mostly dominant horses (the so-called left brain horses) will prove to be a problem. Here problems may arise and, in my opinion, the program still has to little attention for how to deal with dominance issues (I am not saying that the methods that are being used in the program, do not offer the tools of dealing with dominance issues, because they do, but it needs consequent approach). A particular problem is formed by the so-called right-brained dominant horses (horses which are initially afraid, but, once the fear is gone soon go to dominate). They are the kind of horses who spook from everything they see, but which hold a dominant position, or at least show dominant behaviour, within the herd.
Nonetheless, it is clear that the authors of the Parelli system are conscious of these troubles. The DVD series ?horsenality? is specifically designed to deal with these issues, although it still leaves people with quite some questions. Consequently, depending on your own abilities and natural feel of horses and on the type of horse you have, results may differ, even leading to the creation of problem horses (which are actually not so problematic, they are quite often horses who are initially afraid and timid, who then have learned to accept you, but consequently start to utter dominance over you).
A more fundamental issue in creating problem horses lies with the people applying the system. As Parelli puts it nicely, there are two kinds of horse people with problems, the ?carrot? people and the ?stick? people. Let?s be honest, most people starting out with something that is called ?natural horsemanship? will be found in the category of the ?carrot? people and the question is quite often how much they take Pat?s own comment truly to hart: ?be as firm as needed and as gentle as possible?. Most people following the program have little trouble with the last, but are quite often ignoring the first. Sometimes it is necessary to be firm and when you watch Parelli during his shows, you will see that he has a keen eye which amount of pressure is needed. When people start with the program and only apply very gentle pressure (phase one or two as called in the program) they will not get a lot of results. What is even more, when their friendly games encourage their horses to become confident in their neighbourhood, their lack of proper pressure or consistency therein renders horses who become ?lazy? or even ?dangerous? (because they will develop dominance issues).
Is this due to the program, I think not. It has more to do with how people approach the program and how people approach the horse. This problem is further enhanced because ?natural? is often equated with ?only gentle? and this is a great misconception. The statement that ?we must not see horses as equals? proves my statement here. Natural horsemanship is about using the natural behaviour of the horse to get better and more enjoyable results and, more importantly, to create better situations for horse and rider. The partnership which is implied is as much an equal partnership as the partnership horses have with one another. In this regard, I want to take it even a step further, we should not only regard horses as our equals, and we should not regard horses as humans. A problem often encountered by many people who look in natural horsemanship a way to turn a horse into a human partner. This is not only unnatural in my opinion, but even doing injustice to the horse. The partnership consists of one between man and horse, not in trying one of the parties into one another. What the partnership, rather than a purely dominance relation, do require is that the human partner, being the most rational of the two (or at least so we assume) needs to learn the language of the horse and not the other way around (and this can justifiably be the major objection to more conventional training programs).
The second problem, being people getting bored or frustrated by the system, has in my opinion everything to do with human mentality and is perhaps something Pat and Linda or other natural horsemen should make a video about. Again there are two issues to be concerned here. First, since I do not have to make money of getting people into a program I teach, I can be harder in my statement (by which I do not want to attack anyone personal, whatever system they like to follow): there are a lot of people, especially recreational or sportsmen, who are riding for all the wrong reasons. I do not mean that all the ?good people? are into natural horsemanship and all the ?bad people? are into conventional horsemanship, also people engaged in ?natural horsemanship? are sometimes doing it for the wrong reasons. A useful question is always: why are you doing your horse activity? Quite often people only get focussed with results and personal ambitions and the interaction with the horse gets lost somewhere along the way. I am not saying that you cannot have a purpose or ambitions with your horse activity, but if the horse itself gets out of the picture, then you have a serious issue to deal with. If you like jumping over things without wanting to spend time doing other things with your horse than jumping, why not doing motor cross? (you will make higher jumps at higher speeds than you ever will be able to do with a horse). When you want to race at incredible speeds, but you do not want to work with your horse, why not buy a racing car and go on the circuit? (you will be able to race at speeds a horse can never sustain).
Why am I making such a hard statement? Simply because behind the arguments of boredom or frustration, there lies the argument ? which people won?t explicit ? that they do not want to play the games or that they do not have the time for playing the games. A variation upon this argument is that they do not like it when their horse does things they haven?t ask them to do. In other words, they do not like their horses to be living creatures, they would rather have them to be machines. When you are getting bored with the games or frustrated with something that does not work, ask yourselves why you are getting bored.
Surely, this does not apply to all people getting bored or frustrated. Quite often people try and try the program, but they have the feeling that no progress whatsoever is being made. In some cases, they even feel that things are getting worse. This has to do with the second issue I would like to address, namely the way people approach things. Humans are linear and problem solving creature. Furthermore, certainly in our modern days, people tend to think very mechanically: If there is a problem, there must be a fix. This being said, it is important to realise that the Parelli system never stated to be an easy-going system. The reason that so many DVD?s are being produced and that so many video?s can be watched on the ParelliConnect site, has not only to do with commercial opportunism, but also with a clear concern with the problems natural horsemen seem to encounter when dealing with their horses (the more because every horse and every human is different). For sure, it is not an easy task to work out a system that applies to all cases and it is this fallacy that most people frustrates when starting with Parelli. Nonetheless, it could be argued that the Parelli system is the most exhaustive of all natural horsemanship programs out there. So a first important advice is, take your time and allow yourself to take your time. No one ever said it would be easy (even if Pat and Linda quite often make it look easy, perhaps something they should be more mindful of).
Of course, there is more going on. What I almost always seem to notice in the criticism is that the system does not work and it reminds me to the many times that I did not have success (take in mind that for a time, I only worked with the Parelli book and nothing more). It is partially my biological education that always made me return to an ?organic? approach. When something did not work, I went working with that. Questioning myself and analysing my horse. I tried new ways, paid attention to the signals I send and sometimes even took whole steps back. Next to that, I spent a lot of time being with my horses, being in their herd. Observing them, see what moved them (literally and figuratively) and paying attention to their behaviours on and off line. I created my own games next to the Parelli games (which turned out to be applications of the Parelli games when I got my hands on some videos of Pat). One of the most important things, in my opinion, is to get ?organically? when working with horses. This is actually not a new insight, nor is it restricted to natural horsemanship. Many professional horsemen, training horses in conventional styles, know this and apply this. Why? Simply because some of these methods are traditionally been taught to them, but, more importantly, they spend a lot of time around horses. Horses are a part of their natural environment and they ?naturally? learn to read them. What natural horsemanship does is an attempt to give such insights to people, amateurs or otherwise, who do not have the luxury of being with horses all the time or who have less feel to learn such things on themselves. Natural horsemanship, by definition, encourages humans to understand their horses so they can improve their relationships with them and by consequence also their joint ambitions, wherever they may lie. It is not stating something new, it only opens up a system for success which was previously (and still, perhaps to a lesser extent) used by professionals out of experience and pragmatism, to a public of horse laymen. But in the end, it is up to the student to become a master, a path that goes not always over roses. Then again, isn?t that true for anything worth doing?