One of the big tenets of the Parelli system is developing a relationship with your horse. Well, a good relationship, really. If you have a horse, how would you classify the time you spend together? Do you march up to him, grab his nose, and then drag him off to ride in circles for an hour? Worse, do you have to "catch" him by sneaking up to him with the halter behind your back?
Does he run toward you or away from you when he sees you coming?
The first thing Parelli has students do with their horses... is nothing. Walk into the horse's corral, smile at him, and then walk past him. Find a place to sit (or stand, or lean) and ask nothing of your horse for 30 minutes. How different is this from what you normally do? What do you think your horse is thinking? Well, watch and see.
Jester is very social - he likes to know what is going on around him. He runs up to the gate when I (or anyone) comes near. So I wasn't surprised by this. But this time, I brought no carrots and offered no greeting, other than my smile. Then I walked past him and headed for the top of his paddock. He followed me closely, waiting for the magic carrot to appear. Finally, once he was convinced I had none, he gave me some space and we stood around together, swatting the cloud of flies around him.
After a minute or two, he walked down to his shelter and stood inside, listening to the sounds of the barn through the trees. Every once in a while, his ears would twitch back in my direction. A few times he'd wander back up to me, stand around for a minute or two (swatting flies), and then wander back down to the shelter. Each time his angled his body from 180 degrees away from me, to only 90 degrees, facing me and the barn. At one point when he approached me, he did the typical prey horse behavior of approach-pause-approach, stopping to grab some clover and see if I was still safe to approach. When I seemed safe, he continued to approach until he bumped his head against me.
Near the end of the 30 minutes, he changed it up and munched on some grass by his water trough. When I walked toward him (and the exit) he didn't move but just kept munching away.
In retrospect, standing due West at sunset perhaps didn't set me up well for being watched, but was an improvement over standing in the mud and muck. And he did get his carrots eventually, but once I was on my way out and I wasn't trying to entice him to do anything with them.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Mission: Parelli
I have a horse. (yay!)
As part of my activities with my newly arrived horse, I am studying Parelli's natural horsemanship curriculum. So, I'll be musing over observations and assignments as needed, and post updates on how Jester and I are getting along.
Meet Jester
The horse's name coming to me was Buster, but I'm trying out the name Jester instead. He is a Haflinger cross, which is to say part Haflinger, and part something they're not really sure of. The
owner says the main theory is Appaloosa, but it could be anything. He's a pretty classic looking Haflinger, though. His owner before the current one (I'm only leasing him, much like you would a car) bought him at auction, so there's a fair bit of unknown to the guy. The vets put his age in the late teens, which is old enough to know better but still got some good life left in him. He's pretty feisty, actually, and very social. When I went to visit him the other day, he kept coming over to me in the paddock, checking up. When I left, he stood at the gate for a little bit, and then turned and *ran* to the far side of the paddock, where the barn manager was cleaning up. "Ooh, what's going on over here?!"
Currently I'm waiting on some equipment I ordered to arrive before going out on our first ride, but I broke out the natural horsemanship curriculum I bought a couple years ago and have started working through it this weekend. (It starts with ground handling stuff, and I have the equipment I need for that.)
There are a handful of other people who board horses at the barn (just around the corner from our house) and they all mostly trail ride, so once I do get riding, it shouldn't be too hard to find people to go out with. It's also close enough that I should be able to ride him home if I want to, like when I have friends or family visiting and want to show him off. :)
As part of my activities with my newly arrived horse, I am studying Parelli's natural horsemanship curriculum. So, I'll be musing over observations and assignments as needed, and post updates on how Jester and I are getting along.
Meet Jester
The horse's name coming to me was Buster, but I'm trying out the name Jester instead. He is a Haflinger cross, which is to say part Haflinger, and part something they're not really sure of. The
owner says the main theory is Appaloosa, but it could be anything. He's a pretty classic looking Haflinger, though. His owner before the current one (I'm only leasing him, much like you would a car) bought him at auction, so there's a fair bit of unknown to the guy. The vets put his age in the late teens, which is old enough to know better but still got some good life left in him. He's pretty feisty, actually, and very social. When I went to visit him the other day, he kept coming over to me in the paddock, checking up. When I left, he stood at the gate for a little bit, and then turned and *ran* to the far side of the paddock, where the barn manager was cleaning up. "Ooh, what's going on over here?!"Currently I'm waiting on some equipment I ordered to arrive before going out on our first ride, but I broke out the natural horsemanship curriculum I bought a couple years ago and have started working through it this weekend. (It starts with ground handling stuff, and I have the equipment I need for that.)
There are a handful of other people who board horses at the barn (just around the corner from our house) and they all mostly trail ride, so once I do get riding, it shouldn't be too hard to find people to go out with. It's also close enough that I should be able to ride him home if I want to, like when I have friends or family visiting and want to show him off. :)
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