...Natural Horsemanship? I just don't get it.

teabiscuit said:
the difference between a piano and a horse is that a piano doesn't care if you get it wrong. it matters if you get it wrong with a horse.
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the piano may not care - but the audience do ! And if you extend the analogy, if you are the conductor, the orchestra would care !

A conductor and an orchestra work as a team - we work in partnership with our horses. personally I want the music we make to be harmonious ;)

(Kate F - cool analogy. Just because I like, for example, Mediaeval Babes, doesn't stop me liking Rolling Stones)
 
teabiscuit said:
the audience/conductor etc have a choice-they can walk. if a horse exercises his choice he gets put in a can.
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Again, a concept is being blamed for individual human action.

Also, even non-NH people can 'put a horse in a can' ya know. ;)
 
no i am catagorically not blaming the concept i am indeed blaming the individual.
i don't think NH-ers take this fashion thing seriously enough when they want to sell their books and gadgets, just like other branches of equestrianism don't when they want to sell their gadgets.
I BELIEVE ALL BRANCHES OF EQUESTRIANISM HAVE GOOD AND BAD
is that clear enough?
i feel that you are diliberately misunderstanding me.
i've been involved with horses for over 25 years so i'm more than aware that "even non-NH people can put a horse in a can"!
edited for spelling mistakes so that you can have no reason not to understand me :)
 
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Teabiscuit - the 3 months thing wasn't really referring to some sort of brain damage, it's just a comment on behaviour and training :D
I think that there are all these anecdotes about "NH idiots" because they are in the minority and so stand out from the crowd more. For the anecdotes about the "Non-NH idiots" just go and read some of the threads on the other boards here! But in their case they are part of a huge, mainly un-labelled minority.
I still maintain that there's too much fuss with people trying to make some sort of division between "NH" and "them". And then it gets even more daft when people start to try to put various trainers into an us and them situation... like "Parelli vs Monty" etc.
 
Crystal Fire said:
Well, to be honest I think you're on to a loser to try to understand how all these screwed up horses have been trained, whether NH or not. The approaches will vary so much. And then if it's a student or just someone who's watched a DVD and put their own slant on... well, it could all get really confusing.
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Yes-- I've definitely caught on to this. I mainly wanted to know the basic approach of the specific, more popular clinicians. Less so for my relationship with the horse (I find that if I want to find out about the horse's previous training, it's much more accurate to watch the owner around horses than to hear who the owner *tries* to train like), but more so for the people. A lot of people come in with unfamiliar NH terminology or ideas, and it helps me to relate to them better if I understand what they've been taught.

Crystal Fire said:
I can't quote exactly, but he said that we can't worry too much about the long history of the horse in front of us. It is probably relevant to how they are, but we have to deal with the horse as it presents to us now. Just look at what they are doing and deal with it appropriately.
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Definitely a good point. I don't train my formererly-trained-NH horses differently than my other horses-- but sometimes knowing how the owner handled him previously influences your perspective. For example, I had a horse in for training about six months ago named Bo Jangles. He was calm, well mannered, etc., but after a few weeks, I had him out on our riding track, and whenever we went around the last corner onto the straight to the barn, he'd try to take off to the barn. He was terribly insistent on it, and so we decided he was barn sour and treated him as such. However, after speaking to the owner, we learned that her daughter used to walk him to the far end of the paddock and canter him back to the barn (a big no-no, by the way). With this new information, we could clearly define his behavior as confusion-- he thought I wanted him to take off running-- and not being subbornly and fearfully wanting to be in familiar surroundings.

While my methods remained pretty much the same, it gave me better insight and a different attitude and approach to his situation.

--Stille :rolleyes:
 
cvb said:
how do you know that if you are outside of NH looking in ?
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Ahh, see this is my little peeve about NH-- if a lot of your foundation principles are similar to those of NH, you're unknowingly a part of NH?

Let's say Anne is a NH-supporting rider, and tries to apply it in her riding and training, with excellent results.

And let's say that Bea is not a NH-supporter-- but much like Anne, she does respect her horse, consider her horse, and is knowledgeable about both horse behavior/psychology, and training/riding.

Both people are equally good, quality, humane, experienced trainers. Both have equally good results in their training.

Anne sees Bea's great relationship with her horse and says "Oh! You use natural horsemanship, too!" And Bea says "...actually, I don't." Anne considers this for a minute, and responds confusedly "but you consider your horse's instincts and thought-pattern, and you do what's best for him-- that's what I learned from NH!"

Kate F. said:
Going back to the music analogy - whatever style/s you play, there will be certain common skills you need - a good ear, timing, rhythm, feel, co-ordination -that same with horses. Whatever style you ride, whoever your teacher, whatever teaching methods they use, the basic skills will be the same if you are to do it well.
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Respecting your horse, trying to understand your horse's instincts, thinking, and behavior, using common sense, and being humane is NOT uniquely natural horsemanship. That's simply good horsemanship. From my understanding, most natural horseman apply good horsemanship. Most non-natural horseman apply good horsemanship. And of course, there's plenty of exceptions on both sides.

I absolutely love Kate's example-- my older sister is a classical pianist, and I'm more contemporary with my music. We both learned from the same teacher in the beginning, and both had to learn all the same basics. But after we decided which genre of music fit our personalities/tastes/natural abilities/whatever, we learned different techniques and terms. Yes, our music sounds drastically different, but both are quite technically correct and sound absolutely beautiful!

--Stille :rolleyes:
 
cvb said:
Do you do the same thing with the non-NH horses and people that come to you ? Ask about their training approach and who they follow and then explore it ?
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Well, most of the people who come to us either are fans of my boss's methods (he's a clinician who's pretty well known in the gaited community. No pun intended, honestly!), or self-proclaimed NH, DIYs gone wrong.

We *always* like to know the horse's background, including health and training. We most certainly don't go "Oh... by the way-- you're not into NH are you? Oh my... We're gonna need more details on your approach." Lol. That'd be a little unprofessional, I think.

I usually find that it's more accurate to just ask the owners what they actually did, rather than who they tried to copy the methods of-- most of them mixed up the clinician's methods anyways, hence their bringing their horse to us to fix! :p
 
Maybe you should try playing a guitar Kate! , can you imagine a NR karaoke evening , great post and indeed I like your way on NH.

I remember Mike from here saying at a NR meet how good someone was with Parelli on NR he had visited,but I can't for my life remember who she is.

Anyway,like anything we can take or leave NH .
I can't claim to years of experience with methods Mr X,or Mrs/Miss Y and so on, horses let you know if its not working out and appreciate experience/leadership and fairness.
I remember talking to a friend and owner of 29 horses,she suspected a member of staff was being rough handling the horses.
So how to catch the offender I asked?,'my horses never lie and will tell me' she replied.

We all have to start from somewhere and I think there's a lot of good on offer in NH,if you are prepared to study and work, horses are curious about us too and I like to encourage this just as much as learning.

Who do I like? my favourite is the late Bill Dorance,experience ,wisdom, empathy and practicality{a spade is a spade}} Ray Hunt too.For all the negatives written on here about Parelli and Roberts, I personally believe they care deeply for horses and that's the important thing for me.Parelli I owe thanks to and I never thought one day I would say that.

My ex instructor was BHS without the plum:rolleyes: , brilliant too, to train you need a experienced good teacher who has empathy and skill with timing, what a difference alone that makes.

Now our natural bit, my horse is living out 24/7 with no rug, he prefers trees to his shelter and sleeps in a dip where the wind blows over on windy days, he has never complained, he knows exactly what to do in poor weather and how much mud to accumulate and where, I don't mind joining him at the break of dawn,he knows the best place to be to catch the sun or take the sting out of the rain.I just have to be quiet,his mate don't mind me either,he's quiet too,something about this quiet business.
Just to add,Dakota looks great and none the less worse off for a Cumbrian winter.
 
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FRED said:
Maybe you should try playing a guitar Kate!
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:D :D
Acutally, Fred, I play the harp! It's a wonderfully forgiving instument, and even when you get it wrong (which I do a lot!) it still sounds great! :D

Glad most people liked the music analogy! :) That raises another thought.. there seem to be quite a few musicians amongst us. Lodge Ropes raised the question of martial arts and horsemanship... I wonder how music and horses go together... pretty well, I imagine. Feel, sensitivity, rhythm, timing figure highly in the necessary skills for both. Time for another thread, I think!! :D

CRYSTAL FIRE said:
"I've also heard more than one NH trainer say that if we've had a horse for 3 months then we are solely responsible for the way it is, not anything or anyone who has happened in it's history. Very controversial"
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Hmmm, Crysal Fire, this sounds very suspect to me. I don't think the horse distinguishes between learning a task or movement and learning any other type of response or behaviour. It's the humans who distinguish "work" and "play" - the horse is just being a horse in all circumstances. If the horse only retained anything for 3 months, you would have to go right back to square one and re-start the horse if it were turned away for 3 months - which obviously isn't the case. Similarly, a horse that has learned a trick, or been trained in a particular discipline, doesn't forget it if it doesn't practise it for 3 months... if it's been well trained in the first place, it's there for life.

Horses have been proved over and over again to have very good memories, so I don't see that this 3 month claim can in any way be supported by the empirical evidence.

I would certainly agree that a horse's behaviour can be modified in 3 months and it may start to overcome previous problems or even overcome them completely, depending what they were and how deeply they affected the horse - but to say the current owner is "solely responsible" after 3 months doesn't make sense and I think could be damaging. It could put the owner of a difficult horse on a sort of "guilt trip". "I've had my horse for more than 3 months so it's all my fault if it has problems...."

Not a good starting point to overcome the problems which may well be to do with experiences in the much more distant past.
 
KF i'm fully agreeing with your views on the three month thing.
the only thing i didn't agree with about your music analogy is the fact that a horse is a living feeling thinking creature and a musical instrument isn't.
i feel that this is a vital and important difference as i think (maybe controversially) that animals are a lot more intelligent than we as humans in general give them credit for.
thus they deserve more consideration than a piano imo
soory edited to say i got the wrong KF. the piano thing was katefarmer not katef :o
 
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teabiscuit

try not seeing the analogy quite so literally...

e..g what about a conductor, an orchestra - the conductors baton is equivalent to a carrot stick ?

i.e. don't see the horse as the "instrument"....

analogies ARE just that - analogies, not perfect models..... I hear your points about that model, but I personally still feel it is an interesting one with some valuable insights gained through using it.
 
Thanks, cvb!

Teabsicuit, I did say it wasn't a perfect analogy! :)

My point was that one shouldn't blame or dismiss the trainer/approach because some people do it badly. The harmony you achieve, with your horse or a musical instrument depends on how much you put into HOW you do it, and HOW WELL you do it, and this will apply for any discipline/approach.

When you extend the analogy, as cvb pointed out, there are other parallels with the world of music too which I think are interesting... but I promise I am fully aware of the differences between a horse and piano! :D A lot of pianos only have 3 legs, for one thing! :D ..... (Just kidding!! :D ... please don't jump down my throat!)

kate
www.harmony-project.net
 
thats fine if it works for you, it just doesn't work for me because the inanimate/live animal thing is just to big a difference for me to get my head around ;)
 
cvb said:
analogies ARE just that - analogies, not perfect models..... I hear your points about that model, but I personally still feel it is an interesting one with some valuable insights gained through using it.
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Analogies are like rubber bands - useful, but if you stretch them too far they break! :rolleyes:
 
teabiscuit said:
the only thing i didn't agree with about your music analogy is the fact that a horse is a living feeling thinking creature and a musical instrument isn't.
i feel that this is a vital and important difference as i think (maybe controversially) that animals are a lot more intelligent than we as humans in general give them credit for. thus they deserve more consideration than a piano

thats fine if it works for you, it just doesn't work for me because the inanimate/live animal thing is just to big a difference for me to get my head around ;)
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If it helps you to "wrap your head around it"... consider that the analogy is only about the learning process for different people (musicians and riders) of different "genres." For all you know, the rider could very well be riding an inanimate bale of hay :p
 
All very interesting... and I can't agree with the 3 month thing either, as I've got some history-created problems that I'm still struggling with after 2 years! :confused:
(I threw the idea in to add to the discussion).
 
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