>
>
> If PNH horses are having pinned ears and bothered tails, something
is
> wrong, but is it the program? or the application of the program?
>
>
> Or the baggage the horse arrived with?
>
Well put Nancy. I think that anyone can interpret 'a programme' in such
a way that it is applied with force and lack of respect for the animal.
I would be inclined to call that the baggage the person came with. Any
programme is also developing(unless the parelli has stopped learning).
In which case it is bound to be flawed as it isn't yet perfect. There
are developments at the moment and level 2 is temporarily unavailable.
This may be down to the lessons that Pat and Linda are having with
Walter Zettl. In that case I am prepared to wait.
I hear 2 main criticisms of Parelli. The first is that a parelli
trained horse lacks collection and suppleness. The second from AK is
the use of dominance. Well I am all for the use of dominance. There
have been times in my life when I was glad to be dominated. Being lost
in the Madagascan rainforest was one of those times. I did as I had
been told and stayed put for 1 1/2 hours. I was found. That was my
experience of being the horse. Some people have a different
interpretation of dominance. For me it is about having the casting
vote but being willing to listen to and consider the horse. As Parelli
says it is a 51:49 partnership. Hemfling writes a lot about dominace in
his book 'dancing with horses'. Some people interpret dominance as
bossiness (what I call domineering). That can never work with a horse.
It's always a good idea to check the working definitions of the words
we use. There are some often missused words.
Discipline= from the word disciple to follow an example, not punishment.
Responsibility= the ability to respond, not blame.
So the way a programme works out is down to the mindset of the person
using it, the programme and the horse.
I like the Parelli programme. We have had more fun with it than with
the Click that Teaches. I put that down to using the clicker with it.
The click that teaches can be too intense. It keeps me in the right
mindset, playful. Ofeig likes it better at this stage.
thats just my opinion and I know very little.
Sue Coombes
