Clinton Anderson

Slewgal

Slewgal

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Mar 19, 2003
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Clinton Anderson *updated*

So it's getting warmer now, and i will soon have to start retraining Penny, or working on getting her to respect me anyway.

I have Clinton Anderson's book, and would like to start her out with that.
I know some people on her don't like CA, but I don't much care about HIM so if he's a jerk I don't care, his methods seem fine.

So do you just start with the one step(hula hoop) and then keep moving on, following the book? Or did any of you do any other normal type of training along side his stuff.

Also do you HAVE to have the handy stick and 14 ft lead? I got her a rope halter(for $5 and orange couldn't pass it up) and I have a lunge line(35ft) and a lunge whip, and planned on using those, as I am poor.

Tips, personal experinces, and ideas would be appreciated

Slewgal ~ who's never attempted to train or get respect for her horse and is walked all over.:eek:
 
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You should be fine :) I would try and buy a shorter length of rope tho, I have tried working with a lunge line and I ended up in a mess :D Just grab something at home depot tie it to a clip and have at er. I use a dressage whip.. I think a "handy" stick might truly work better, but again grab a wood dowel at home depot for like 2$ but you should do alright for now

And yes, if you take the book and just work forward you should be OK. I like his book, his desensitization without the hocus pocus horse whispering "majic" approach is well laid out. Stacey Westfall is now writing for horse and Rider (since jan) and I am liking her articles as well.

I have a huge "tool box" if you will so yes I did all kinds of other things while working thru I can't not it's all apart of me as a trainer.
 
I started both of my youngsters just using his book - BUT - we have his weekly TV show here as well, and I hadn't noticed quite how much easier it is having seen it done until I tried explaining it to someone who'd never seen it ! If you can get to see a show or two, or get a DVD that would make things so much easier.

I too did it without any of the right equipment... if you have a sensitive horse, a dressage whip can be a little too whippy, but I found a 'handy stick' ... it was a stick, and it was lying on the lawn at the base of a tree, which was handy, and that worked fine - stiffer, less whippy than a whip.

There's a whole lot in the hula hoop exercise and it's well worth spending some time on - and coming back to often. It's about where the horse's focus is, and how to get it back to you before it wanders off. If you can get that - pre-empting any 'wrong' behaviours while they're still a thought, before they become an action, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble in the long-run.

You do have to take it step-by-step... but again, you've got to be listening to the horse the whole time, and moving things along - don't be getting boring. You don't have to have a 100% perfect hula hoop before starting the disengage, for example. I wouldn't introduce lots of new exercises in any one session, but it's perfectly normal to be working on hula hoop for a few minutes, then perfecting the disengage, then starting the shoulders over thing ... and try a bit of sending all in one session.

ETA : ahh yes, you are in the US - do you get RFD-TV ? If not I can probably help :)
 
Slewgal said:
Great ideas! never would have thought of that. I will have to get off to Lowes or Home Depot soon enough.

Any sturdy stick would get the job done, just have to watch out for splinters, lol.

Keep the ideas and experiences coming!
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You can always run tape over any stick - like a hockey tape or something to prevent slivers, which is what I did with my dogs target stick.

I throughly enjoyed his ideas, and Kate and I are both always a post away if you need a little support :)
 
Nope, I only have rabbit ears.

Yeah, I would love to see his stuff in action, but I will have to do with the book for now.

I was thinking a striaght branch would work as well.:p

My mian goal is to get her to NOT run me over anymore. That's where a lot of my nervousness in handling her comes from, she will deer hop right on top of you if someting spooks her(which EVERYTHING does).

And teaching her to stand still.

By other things, I was thinking maybe working on her standing still for mounting, but I would like to get thorugh all the exercises before riding her again, but her standing for mounting is my other peeve. I liked someones on here's suggestion of getting off the mounting block and backing them up and repeating that til they stand still.
 
Slewgal said:
I know some people on her don't like CA, but I don't much care about HIM so if he's a jerk I don't care, his methods seem fine.
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Yep. His methods work just fine. (It's the methods that train the horse, not the $12,000 teeth.)

In addition to his exercises, you may want to try some subtle respect-builders, such as the folllowing:

Train your horse to yield to your suggestion to move over by:

1. Stand at its shoulder, holding the lead rope about 24 inches from the halter. (If your horse tries to turn its hind quarters to you, pull its nose to you.)

2. With your off hand, press your fingertips into the shoulder lightly (about two pounds of pressure) and wait.

3. When the horse leans into you (and it will), just maintain your relative position at the shoulder and continue to hold the pressure; don't increase the pressure, just hold it.

4. When you feel the horse lean away from the pressure (this will take a couple of minutes), immediately stop the pressure and rub it gently at the point you were pressing.

5. Continue this exercise until the horse immediately steps away (every time) from you when you press your fingers into its shoulder.

You now have a horse that is yielding to you; and this (yielding) is the first requirement for respect.

Do the same exercise at various other spots on the horse until the horse always yields away from your pressure.

Best regards,
Harry
 
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I agree. I really like Clinton's methods a lot. I've never read his book, but his video's are great because he explains things so simply. There's no smoke and mirrors magic involved like some of the other clinicians I've seen. In some of his videos he demonstrates the exercise with a fat lazy horse and a hot nervous horse so you can see the different responses. He also shows you common training mistakes with each exercise and how to avoid or fix them.
 
Well, okay, first off I am a prcratinator.:rolleyes:

I just know did the Hula Hoop, a wee bit, and lunged(that is just attaching the line to her halter)her a bit, probably only 2 mintues from each side, lol.

Was pretty surprised she let me catch her, but then again, I havne't asked her to do anything since last summer.:p I bet tomorrow won't be so easy.

Anywhoo, with the Hula Hoop game, I just stepped about 6 feet away from her, made sure she was looking at me, and every time she tried to step forward towards me I said 'Back!', whilst tapping her chest,until she stepped away from me. She picked that up in about 2 mintues, I did have to tug the rope a few times, as she just wanted to eat the new fresh grass in that pasture....So does that sound like I did it correctly? I wish I got the tv program so I could actually see this stuff in action.

I've never tried lunging before, I know she knows how, she did good on that, didn't have good success at getting her to come down to a walk from a trot, she would just stop....but I will try for a bit longer tomorrow.

Does this all sound good so far??? I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing.:eek:

Also how muich should I do with her in terms of riding, she is out in a 3 acre pasture 24/7, and I havnen't ridden her since one time last year so almost 1 and a half years since she's been ridden regularly, would she be in enough shape to ride? I'm sure for a walk and a bit of trot would be fine?
 
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Slewgal said:
Also do you HAVE to have the handy stick and 14 ft lead? I got her a rope halter(for $5 and orange couldn't pass it up) and I have a lunge line(35ft) and a lunge whip, and planned on using those, as I am poor.
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It's a bit like do you HAVE to have riding boots to ride? No, you don't HAVE to, but it's so much easier and more comfortable with the right equipment. A lunge line will be too long and too light. It won't have the right feel. I'm very suspicious about a 5 dollar halter - at that price, it will be cheap rope, which is not going to have the right movement on the horse's face.

Handy stick, carrot stick, cucumber stick, contact stick - whatever you call it, here you can economise a bit. What's important is that it's light enough for you to use, long enough to make you appear bigger to the horse, but not so long that it's unwieldy, and that it looks substantial to the horse. Lunge whips are usually too long and too unwieldy. The Handy/Carrot/Cucumber stick (I love the way each "guru" patents the same stick with a new name and new colour!) has a particular weight and balance to it - and the string on the end need the right weight to give the right movement. Again, it's going to be difficult with a lunge whip - but I would think you could ask around and get a second hand carrot stick pretty easily. (Personally I don't use a stick at all, but if the approach you choose uses one, you will find it much easier with the right type of stick).

Have a look at Lodgeropes website - http://www.freewebs.com/lodgeropes/ropehalters.htm

Their halters and ropes are very reasonably priced, and the quality is excellent. The "brand name" stuff is often over priced - but you can get the same quality cheaper from suppliers like Lodge Ropes. Even if you are on a tight budget, I really do think it's worth investing in a good quality halter and rope.

I give courses in natural horsemanship, and I often have people coming to my courses with cheap equipment they're "making do" with. They tell me it's all they can afford and it works fine. I then lend them a good quality halter and rope for the day - just so everyone is using the same tools. After one day with the good quality ones, they nearly always suddenly find they can afford to buy the good ones after all and the cheap "make do" stuff hits the bottom of the bin!

You won't believe the difference a good halter makes until you experience it!
 
Thanks for the mention Kate, most appreciated (5 quid in the mail as usual :0)

someone really experienced, like Mark Rashid, may be able to get the desired response from a horse with a webbing halter and barn yard rope, but we needed to get a decent leadrope and halter to get the results in the early days. I would consider them to be the basic requirements.

Following on from something Kate mentioned about training sticks, we often see training sticks being used to get the horse to react to a cue, not respond.
The stick is used to stimulate the flight response, pushing the horse into action but it is false training..(if that makes sense) The stimuli has the horse processing the info in the wrong part of its brain (if you follow the left/right brain senario) It is reacting to the stimuli, not thinking and working out the correct response thru calculated trial and error.
The other poblem with relying on such tack as extended training sticks is that the trainer often pays less attention to their body position in relation to the horse. This can send mixed messages to the horse and cause confusion.

We use sticks, but dont rely on them for any technique, I dont see why sticks have to be any special style, brand or colour. Infact, we dont usually make or sell them but we have made a few specials over the years, attached are pics of a totally outrageous purple and pink stick and string we shipped to a customer in the UK.

A 14ft lead is handy if you are working a larger horse, but can also trip up someone not used to working a horse with 1/2" marine rope trailing along the ground.

many great pieces of training equipment have been made by riders, at very little cost, but as we are still using the very first 'proper' halter & leadrope we made over 12 years ago, we feel it was worth the expense of sourcing the best available materials..

good luck with the training.
 
Slewgal said:
Well, okay, first off I am a prcratinator.:rolleyes:

I just know did the Hula Hoop, a wee bit, and lunged(that is just attaching the line to her halter)her a bit, probably only 2 mintues from each side, lol.

Was pretty surprised she let me catch her, but then again, I havne't asked her to do anything since last summer.:p I bet tomorrow won't be so easy.

Anywhoo, with the Hula Hoop game, I just stepped about 6 feet away from her, made sure she was looking at me, and every time she tried to step forward towards me I said 'Back!', whilst tapping her chest,until she stepped away from me. She picked that up in about 2 mintues, I did have to tug the rope a few times, as she just wanted to eat the new fresh grass in that pasture....So does that sound like I did it correctly? I wish I got the tv program so I could actually see this stuff in action.

I've never tried lunging before, I know she knows how, she did good on that, didn't have good success at getting her to come down to a walk from a trot, she would just stop....but I will try for a bit longer tomorrow.

Does this all sound good so far??? I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing.:eek:

Also how muich should I do with her in terms of riding, she is out in a 3 acre pasture 24/7, and I havnen't ridden her since one time last year so almost 1 and a half years since she's been ridden regularly, would she be in enough shape to ride? I'm sure for a walk and a bit of trot would be fine?
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Well, thaks for the advice, but that was a bit ago, I was more looking for if everything went well with the above scenario? not anything to do with the equipment I'm using?:eek: Edit, eh......maybe I should just post this in the General section....
 
It sounds OK - but without seeing you it's hard to tell. The main thing is, did it achieve what you wanted? It sounds as though it did, in which case it's fine. There are many ways to get the horse out of your space and there's no one "correct" way. If what you did got the horse out of your space without hurting it, you stopped asking when it did the right thing, and it got better at recognising your signals as you practised - then it was fine! :) If you want what you do to be identifyable as "Anderson" as opposed to "Parelli", or "Lyons" or anyone else, you'll probably need an instructor to make sure you're doing everything as prescribed - but at the end of the day it's communication with the horse that's important, not the brand name.

As far as riding goes, just start of gently and I'm sure it will be fine. Perhaps a couple of times a week in walk and trot to start with, and build it up gradually.
 
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