Traditional VS Natural

TallyHo123

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I am now working on my final essay of my Diploma :D!!
the title i have chosen to write about is 'A comparasson of training horses using traditional methods vs natural horsemanship methods'

I am just wondering if anybody wants to give me their opnions? About avsolutly anything to do with it. I understand everyones views will be different and during the essay I am going to outline what i feel the definitions for each are.

Absolutly anything would be great, it will get my thought on the subject flowing too!

thanks :-)
 
I am now working on my final essay of my Diploma :D!!
the title i have chosen to write about is 'A comparasson of training horses using traditional methods vs natural horsemanship methods'

I am just wondering if anybody wants to give me their opnions? About avsolutly anything to do with it. I understand everyones views will be different and during the essay I am going to outline what i feel the definitions for each are.

Absolutly anything would be great, it will get my thought on the subject flowing too!

thanks :-)
I think you could describe so called traditional as modern and so called natural as
Traditional !! ...well some of it as the idea of working with the horses instincts and getting the horse to want to do something is a very old idea look up xenophon!! and the make him "jolly well do it... kick on" is sometimes a modern horsemanship idea
 
I think that parts of both have their place in "modern" horsemanship. Obviously the downright cruel parts of the traditional have rightly been abandoned in favour of more sympathetic methods. But equally, I feel that parts of the "natural" horsemanship is taking things a bit too far... I mean, is there a point to getting a horse to stand on a tree stump or something? Well, I can kind of see that the point is that they trust you enough to try.

I'd be really interested to read your dissertation! mine was on chicken problem solving behaviour related to their housing conditions as a measure of welfare!
 
Everyone knows my views on Parelli and other natural horsemanship types so I won'tair them again...

All I have to say on the matter is horses for courses....common sense and good knowledge is always the best way forwards either way :)
 
jenhunt, I wouldn't mind sending it to you if you wanted when i finish my first draft? You might also be able to see if I sound like I'm on the right track?
 
Conceptually, you need to start with defining 'traditional' and 'modern'. You will probably find that the definitions themselves are really contentious and will take up more than this assignment! It may also be helpful to relate people's general claims about their training methods to behevioural and ethological approaches in the literature, e.g. operant conditioning, classical conditioning, positive and negative reinforcement, etc.
 
Sorry, just to add, the welfare dimension is an entirely different thing. It's a different question to ask "are modern training methods different from traditional ones?" and to ask "are modern and traditional methods compatible with horse welfare?". If you are interested in the second question, as well as defining the two methods, you would need to discuss what constitutes horse welfare (e.g. physiological vs behavioural factors, lack of pain vs provision of goods, the whole issue of humans using animals for their own purposes).
 
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