What is Parelli?

Parelli Natural Horsemanship is, explained simply, putting you relationship with your horse before your goals and never ending self improvement. Many people think Parelli is for "difficult" horses but people who get into Parelli find out it is more about changing the way the human acts and treats the horse than it is about changing the horse. Horses and prey animals and their natural instinct is if they're scared RUN!! Humans are predators and don't understand this about horses and often put the horses in situations that the horses aren't comfortable with eg, loading a horse into a trailer, the horse will react badly eg, rearing, biting kicking (they will do this because they do not have the option to run and they truly think the trailer will kill them!) or even in the worst cases attempting to jump out the tiny window at the front of the trailer! Then the horse will be labelled as "difficult" and "dangerous"! Does that sound fair to you? Parelli's aim is to teach humans to understand the prey animals instincts and not to act like a predator to the horse. Many people think that Parelli is a load of rubbish but that is only because they don't understand what Parelli is about and are too scared to try something new. Think about it this way, would you rather have to force a terrified, kicking, rearing and dangerous horse onto a trailer using whips, ropes and brute force or have the horse walk calmly on by itself? Would you rather be riding a horse that you have to keep constant contact on the reins and pull pull pull on the horses mouth to get them to stop or slow down or have a horse that knows it shouldn't go faster than what you tell it and you can stop it or slow it using just your seat? Would you rather go into your horses paddock and have him run away from you or run up to you? I know which I would rather have! And for those of you sitting there thinking "well I can do all those things with my horse and I don't do Parelli!" can you bounce a big ball all over and around your horse, put a tarp over your horse, make your horse walk over a tarp, make your horse walk through a small doorframe with plastic strips hanging down without it being the slightest bit scared because it trusts you and knows you would never do anything to harm it? If you can, congratulations because you seemed to have figured out the Parelli techniques all by yourself! As for the gear, you do not HAVE to have the gear. I myself did Parelli for 6months w/o the gear and it worked ok it is just better to have the gear. And the only gear you really need is the carrot stick, halter and lead rope! Compared to whips, bum ropes, fancy bridles and bits to control your horse, hobbles etc. And yes the things are expensive I agree but you can do it without the info packs etc! All I have is the carrot stick, halter and rope and it's fine! It really does work! If you don't believe it the only way you will find out how amazing it truly is, is to try it for yourself...