when big name trainers get too caught up in their own egos: Pat Parelli and Catwalk

I keep hoping someone with better footage will post it online, but even though the quality of what follows is poor, it's plenty clear enough: Pat Parelli will go against his own philosophy to accomplish his goal in front of an audience, and if it takes ropes on legs and twitches on gums, so be it.

These are his words about working with an ear shy horse (here, and in all Parelli quotes, I have left the typos as they were):

EAR SHY? By Pat Parelli
Can you touch your husband's ears? What about your best friend's, your child's or your mother's?
If you couldn't then there's probably something wrong with the relationship! This is how I want you to think of your horse's so-called 'problem'. If he doesn't like his ears to be touched its because deep down inside, he does not trust you. There is a flaw in your relationship.
When I talk about the solution here I am going to give you the natural approach, the one that consider's the horse's point of view. To effect a 'cure' you have to gain his trust and permission. The normal way is often to force the horse to accept it, twitch him, tie him, throw him…. In my mind (and in the horse's I'm sure) this is akin to rape and I won't use it.


I guess all that goes out the window when you're in front of a paying crowd and your ego is on the line.

The idea that this went on for several hours is horrific. I can't believe the owner of this horse allowed Parelli near him the next day.

This is an example of what I meant in my comment on the recent Edward Gal post: when a trainer comes to believe his own hype,  he'll do almost anything to protect it, even when it proves to be wrong for the horse he's trying to help.

IMO, the Parellis are way over the line at this point. There is no way either of them would get anywhere near any of my animals.

I hope the huge number of people who follow their work stop and take a good hard look at what's being done to horses in the name of training. Those who walked out on this demonstration are the ones who deserve the accolades.




There are better ways to do this kind of work - with no force and no trauma to the animal. First and foremost, a veterinary exam, a chiro exam, and a dental exam. After all physical reasons for this behavior have been ruled out, proceeding with some work on the issue at hand. And guess what? It doesn't involve gimmicks or being the alpha. It simply involves gaining the respect and trust of the horse, and breaking down the task into small, manageable pieces that build on one another to the end result.

Here's the video posted of the entire 3 days as edited by the Parelli team.  Note that none of the rope restraints show up on their version. A number of people report that the horse was obviously drugged for days 2 and 3.  I don't know. But it's obvious they are hell-bent on getting the bit into the mouth, even if it's the ring instead of the bit itself that goes in. And that Parelli's solution utilizes all kinds of contraptions, lots of drama, and ZERO common sense.



What they said after the Friday session:

Our challenging horse lived up to its billing tonight at the Royal Featival of The Horse demo. Catwalk, an extremely Left-Brain stallion showed us his wonderful spirit and demonstrated that his unwillingness to bridle hasn't been created during the 8 weeks that Robert Whitaker has owned him but is clearly due to many years of fear of being bridled due to the lack of a basic foundation training.
We ran 45 minutes over and a couple of folks were upset at what they think they saw, saying they may post on YouTube. We all have nothing to worry about except misunderstanding. Pat stopped at an appropriate time in the training process when he saw a breakthrough and preserved Catwalk's dignity, which is more important than getting the bridle on tonight. 

How arrogant to blow off all the upset observers - "what they think they saw" - and if this is preserving a horse's dignity, well, I have a very different notion of dignity than the Parellis do.

Vote with your wallet, folks. And if you boycott a horse festival because the Parellis are doing a demonstration, let the venue know why you aren't coming.