My Experience With Parelli - Please Listen To This

If you have looked into any of my writings or website, you already know that I am not a Parelli trainer.  I am a SATS trainer, and use that communication technology to teach (mostly dressage) skills to the horses in my care and/or instruction in very rapid timeframes. I also draw from any source if I think it makes sense and has value to the training I impart - and that includes Parelli, Lyons, Anderson, etc.

So, I am not making this blog entry to "bash" anybody, rather to point out a problem that surfaced with some recent clients. And it goes like this:

I have three Parelli-trained (or perhaps I should say "started") horses under my instruction. The clients came to me because they are dissatisfied with the riding progress made on their horses with the Parelli program.  Let's face it - horse owners want to ride, and therein, enjoy their time with their horses. The Parelli processes often take substantial time, and these clients apparently were not clear that they would be paying a trainer for 6, 12, 18 months and that the trainer would actually ride their horse two-or-three times in that period - if at all.

So now, they come to me because (assuming there are no acute problems to be solved) I am generally on the horse and communicating riding skills in one-to-two weeks. Except Parelli horses.  I have to spend an inordinate amount of time doing things like teaching the horse to NOT turn and face me when I am trying to mount, and it short-circuits my entire process.

The end result has a tendency to make me look like a fool, the Parelli trainer look like a fool, and the client look like a fool - none of which is really true, but everyone in the process has been short-circuited. Especially the horse.

So my advice to all is this: Parelli is a fine method (despite that it grants little acknowledgement to the higher-learning capacities of the horse) - if you have been convinced that is the only-best way to kindly train a horse, then by all means go with it! But COMMIT to it - with the full understanding that you need to stay with it for a very long time; you are not likely going to be riding your horse in the next two or three months, and if you call someone like me to make that happen, we all end up looking like fools and a lot of time and money is wasted.

"Do, or do not. There is no try."