NH video - training a foal...

team barney said:
I saw a picture of a 2 day old foal being Parelli-ized a few weeks ago. They had ropes around the tiny thing and were even picking it's feet up. :( Oh dear, my foals have a rope around thier neck and bum, and a foal slip on from a day old

Call me old fashioned but I think foals should have time to learn to be horses before they have to learn to be a humans plaything. Different schools of thought about that, mine is that if a foal is accustomed from an early age to being haltered, learning to lead, pick up feet then it makes life an awful lot easier later. I have had 4 year old ranch bred horses that have only ever been put in a crush to be branded and de-wormed, and trying to halter a practically wild four year old is a heck of a lot more stressful on the horse than haltering a foal.

Why can't people just let the foals have a few months freedom before they have to fit the constraints of humanity.as above. My foals are bought in and handled every day They live out in a herd, and being in does not make any difference to them being a horse, 20 minutes handling out of their day isn't going to kill them - it may just save them in an emergency

But then again Parelli recommends you geld your colts before they are even 2 weeks old. Well, their plums are already there and down at that age. My Vet says that it is common practice in some countries to cut colts that early. I don't because the colt might grow up to be a decent horse - you can cut them off, but you can't stick them back on again if you've made a mistake:(

:(
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Can't open the link to the clip but I think I have seen it before.
 
Jennyharvey said:
As far as i am aware, most horse trainers in america call any young horse a colt, whether its a colt, gelding or filly. It doesnt actually mean that its a uncastrated colt, unless it actually is.

.
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Yes, you are right. A colt is any youngster, regardless of gender :)
 
 
Enfys said:
Neither do I, these mentioned are not horses I have bred.
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I understand that I was just stating that I don't believe that is the way to bring up a horse either.

I do however believe that the Parelli foal "training" video is wrong. If the same tactics were being used on a 4 year old, most people would be crying out flooding but on a baby it is somehow perceived as perfectly acceptable and even "cute".
 
team barney said:
I personally don't like to see 2-3 day old foal being "trained" like this.

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The foal looks exhausted, I don't think this is the correct way to raise a contented and happy horse.
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I dont really see to much wrong with these pictures. Yes the foal does look tired, but he was allowed a nap, so i dont really have an issue with getting a foal use to being handled and getting use to ropes.

When i worked for a top showjumper in OZ, they're method of getting a halter on a younster was to wrestle with it, until they got it on. No training, just force. I would much rather a horse handled and haltered early, than have some person wrestle to get a headcollar on it.
It sounds like you have some agenda with parelli, which is fair enough, im sure a lot of people have issues with him.
 
team barney said:
I understand that I was just stating that I don't believe that is the way to bring up a horse either.

I do however believe that the Parelli foal "training" video is wrong. If the same tactics were being used on a 4 year old, most people would be crying out flooding but on a baby it is somehow perceived as perfectly acceptable and even "cute".
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I havnt seen any of his dvd's so cant really comment on them. Im against flooding myself, and sometimes you can do more harm than good by training horses, especially foals, using it. After all, you dont want to turn the horse inito a robot.
 
team barney said:
Walking it over an open sided bridge is incredibly irresponsible.

Encouraging it to jump a large solid object is despicable, I hate to see foals being made to jump. People will argue the foal isn't being made to jump but taking it's mother over the obstacle (a large tree that made a very wide x-country style jump) is going to make the foal jump it to get to her. Foals don't think I'll go out of my way around the object to get back to my mummy, instead they think my Mums there I better leap of this tree to get to her.

It could easily break a leg jumping on that stupid green ball, luckily it slipped sideways instead of straight down.

I also pity the poor mare, being ridden 3 weeks after foaling can't be fun.

I saw a picture of a 2 day old foal being Parelli-ized a few weeks ago. They had ropes around the tiny thing and were even picking it's feet up.

Call me old fashioned but I think foals should have time to learn to be horses before they have to learn to be a humans plaything.

Why can't people just let the foals have a few months freedom before they have to fit the constraints of humanity.

But then again Parelli recommends you geld your colts before they are even 2 weeks old.

**** what hope do these poor horses have :(
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I agree, babys should be left to be babys, they have a long enough life of being ridden and forced to do things.

although it was cute, and it always good to start them off young, but not this young!
 
Jennyharvey said:
It sounds like you have some agenda with parelli, which is fair enough, im sure a lot of people have issues with him.
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No agenda, I just have a severe intolerance for horse abuse, and however it is dressed up Parelli "natural" horsemanship is an abusive system based entirely on fear and learned helplessness. Routinely striking a horse with sticks and ropes is cruelty and regardless of the pro-parelli argument to the contrary that is the reality behind the marketing.
 
team barney said:
No agenda, I just have a severe intolerance for horse abuse, and however it is dressed up Parelli "natural" horsemanship is an abusive system based entirely on fear and learned helplessness. Routinely striking a horse with sticks and ropes is cruelty and regardless of the pro-parelli argument to the contrary that is the reality behind the marketing.
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I agree to a point, i dont much like pat or linda, i dont like how they train a horse at all. I just hope your not one of those people who dislike any form of NH just because of these idiots. There are some very good trainers out there not associated with parelli.
 
Jennyharvey said:
I agree to a point, i dont much like pat or linda, i dont like how they train a horse at all. I just hope your not one of those people who dislike any form of NH just because of these idiots. There are some very good trainers out there not associated with parelli.
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That is far from the case, my horses are barefoot, bitless (one rides entirely gadget-less, we don't even need a neck sting), treeless (bareback 99% of the time), they live out 24/7 too. I am to most people a natural horseman. I don't however follow a school of training, there is things to be learnt from most natural systems (the main exception being Parelli) but I have never conformed to a system (equine or otherwise :p). My horses are my teachers, I have learnt the greatest lessons of my life from them. I have never had a conventionally easy horse, they were all problematic in someway (some would probably argue that they still are) but we have a fantastic partnership, and I honestly wouldn't swap a single one of them for any horse the world has to offer.
 
team barney said:
That is far from the case, my horses are barefoot, bitless (one rides entirely gadget-less, we don't even need a neck sting), treeless (bareback 99% of the time), they live out 24/7 too. I am to most people a natural horseman. I don't however follow a school of training, there is things to be learnt from most natural systems (the main exception being Parelli) but I have never conformed to a system (equine or otherwise :p). My horses are my teachers, I have learnt the greatest lessons of my life from them. I have never had a conventionally easy horse, they were all problematic in someway (some would probably argue that they still are) but we have a fantastic partnership, and I honestly wouldn't swap a single one of them for any horse the world has to offer.
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We have a lot in common i think. Im bitless, barefoot, and consider my horses the best teachers. I learn from as many good trainers as i can (except parelli). I dont follow a particular trainer or system, and i would actually rarely call it NATURAL horsemanship. Horsemanship is really what it is. Good horsemanship that puts the horse first.
 
Well, ignoring all the usual Parelli arguments... which are always the same... :-))
Foals follow their mothers in and out of all sorts of situations if they have plenty of room and varied terrain to roam in. Mares don't avoid bridges without sides on, and that's how foals learn I supppose.
While I have issues with some of what Parelli does, I don't see anything harmful in any of this video clip. The mare was clearly quite comfortable and relaxed and the foal seemed to be having an interesting time. Nobody forced the foal over the log, it knows how to run round things as is demonstrated clearly in other parts of the clip. Foals will run and jump over things from the earliest age anyway. We've had video on here before of young foals playing with balls and people have said "how cute", and sometimes remarked on how they held their breath watching how violently foals play. I don't recall anyone saying that it was cruel to offer a foal a ball to play with if it chose to in the past.
I wish we could have seen this video without the Parelli association and got the reaction to it then. Say with a bridle instead of a rope halter, and no Parelli connection at all. I'm sure there wouldn't have been anything like the same level of outrage.
 
fburton said:
Mounting behaviour in young colts (male foals) may be related to a testosterone surge that happens post-natally, long before the onset of puberty. I would not be surprised if it paralleled the incidence of flehmen behaviour, which is mainly seen in stallions, but also occurs in male foals - most frequently at a couple of weeks of age and then declines to the same low level as fillies over the next 12-16 weeks (Crowell-Davies & Houpt, 1985).

But then, if the foal was male and already gelded, that may not be the explanation. I didn't know Parelli encouraged such early gelding - what's wrong with it being done at the usual age? :confused:

As for the video clip, I actually didn't mind what was shown. I've seen a lot worse, including the horrid and unnecessary 'imprint training' procedure that Robert Miller advocates.

I wouldn't try the log-jumping or bridge-crossing myself, but I also can't help thinking that some native pony foals who have been born and grow up in rugged terrains would be likely to meet similar hazards from time to time and in any case would possess an innate wariness of precipitous drops.
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Common sense as usual.
 
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