Parelli?

[lolahutt]

After a long break from riding my horse due to my pregnancy, then her injury we are now a month or so away from starting groundwork, then it will be about another month till I can ride her:) . I have heard a little about parelli and really like the sound of it. Have not yet bought anything am hoping to get recomendations here! Also any general parelli tips would be very welcome. Plus what is the carrot stick thing, I know it is to 'extend personal space' but what is that supposed to mean! It looks to me like an orange riding whip so what is the deal with it! :)

[cvb]

lolahutt

If you have a 12ft line in your hand, how far can the horse be away from you ?

If you are using the tail of the rope to create pressure, its actually not very far - and its a tight circle. (Because you will hold the middle of the line to create a tail you can swing)

If you want to make that circle (working area) bigger, you want to use more of the rope and create any pressure another way. You could use your arm, but its only short. So you have an "arm extender" ;)

This is not just to create pressure, but also to give them a reassuring rub to say "good" as well. Like having an arm that is 10ft longer :)

With PNH, you start working quite close to your horse and get further away as your communication and control gets better.

[Zer0]

I highly recommend Parelli games to do for groundwork in the next month. I haven't ridden my horse in about...four months? Well, during those four months I just did Parelli stuff, and May made a huge improvement. She became a lot more tolerable, less flighty, and looks more like a mature 8 year old than a young and scared 6 year she was :D

As for the Carrot stick, it is not meant to ever hit the horse, ever. It's just an extension of your arm, pretty much :p But you will need it and it's very helpful.

[lolahutt]

Thanks, sounds like rope and carrot stick are essentials, what about any other equipment to start and what is the best way for me to learn what to do? A place near me does day courses but very expensive, also I have seen courses to buy, even more expensive and I already study OU so not much time! Is there a good book that would explain clearly? :)

[cvb]

lolahutt

Pat Parelli has a book - but thats why they went on to create the home study packs, cos a book has snapshots and not text, and struggles to cover the information.

But one piece of advice would be to see what the local place that does courses charges for spectators, cos you can learn LOADS from watching (and reading the book in the meantime)

[lolahutt]

Thanks cvb I did see a price for spectators, much cheaper and I will also get the book!:)

[cvb]

lolahutt

the other thing to do is check out websites - there are some good sites with excellent content ....and they are FREE !!! (just not so easy to take out to the field with you !)

Kate Farmer's site, the Harmony Project http://www.harmony-project.net/home.aspx is an excellent non-PNH site :D

and one of the best descriptions I've seen of the 7 games is on the iceryder site http://www.angelfire.com/az/iceryder/pnh.html

if you search the old messages here, you will probably find other URLs as well

[lolahutt]

Thanks-fab sites!

[KateWooten]

Parelli is a brand name ... for the packaging and marketing of a (very good) but very well-known method of gaining the horse's respect by moving their feet. It's not new - just the packaging is new ... and Parelli has named a bunch of things so that people who do 'Parelli' really buy into the brand - he talks a lot of 'savvy' and 'carrot sticks' and '7 games' and stuff ...but none of these are new things. If you can gather the information from other sources, it ends up costing a lot less if you can avoid his particular marketing of it.

Kate Farmer's Harmony project is a good place to start looking. You can lose many happy hours there. As far as equipment, you don't need a $40 stick, it is, as you so rightly note, a stick! I find a dressage whip a little too whippy for my taste, but a 4ft 'stick' cut from a tree, works just fine ! And a rope halter can be tied for about 67 cents, or 50p from a piece of rope.

When I started on my quest, same as you, the quest for information on how to gain the respect of my horse (then, an unbroken 3 yr old), I bought or borrowed the entry level book from as many different trainers as I could. They were almost all the same .. as noted above, written by people who believed you could not learn this stuff from a book. They were all fairly substanceless tasters to get you to buy into the 'real' program. Apart from one.

Although aimed at being groundwork, and basic ridden exercises for the already broke horse, I used this one book, very succesfully to start my first youngster, and we did well. It's not the be-all and end-all, but it was a great foot in the door to get me out there listening to my horse and working with him, and to know what I was looking at when it came to studying the other trainers in greater depth.

The book (everyone is yawning... here we go again ... ) is Clinton Anderson's and it will show you step by step, in great detail, with pictures, and details of common mistakes, and what to do if... and the theory behind it all and etc etc .. .and to date although I've read a bunch of more sophisticated writings by the great dressage masters, I've found absolutely nothing that comes close to his easy to follow, straightforward 'how-to' approach.

Kate

[lolahutt]

Thanks Kate, I will get that book and I am glad I was right about the carrot stick thing, I kept staring at pictures trying to work out what was different!