To-day I have been checking out information re Andrew McLean via his Australian Equine Behavioural Clinic (AEBC) website - www.aebc.com.au. I have been interested in Andrew McLean's work for sometime as he has a very good reputation in my local area. Prior to breaking in Tricka I had intended sending her to Andrew. Although I am very happy with where Tricka is in her training perhaps she would have been better off if she had been trained by Andrew. For example she may not have shied and slipped over and damaged her back! Some of the articles written by Andrew that appear under 'Articles' on his home page are very interesting and compatable with Monty's training. For example "The whip debate" and his 8 principles of learning I found fascinating. However at times I felt a little frustrated. I find all these "expert" professionals would like us to believe their ideas are all original however it is obvious that they are not. So much has been written and taught in the past re training horses and this has been incorporated into the personal style of the trainers to-day. I just wish that these "experts" would be more generous in acknowledging where their ideas have come from. Some ideas and their own personal flair may be original but a substantial portion of their training techniques have been borrowed from other experts of the past and present and I feel this should be acknowledged. Here I once again lift my hat to Monty as he seems more ready to acknowledge the contributions of others to his learning process than many other professionals seem to be. Just a personal gripe - my sister is an 'original' professional horse trainer but like Andrew she too has developed her training method by incorporating ideas from others which fitted with her own views.
Rewards
Subscribe to Equus Online University and become a part of Monty's worldwide mission to leave the world a better place for horses and for people too.
Students automatically gain access to special rewards, such as exclusive discounts at the Monty Roberts Online Shop. Visit Monty Roberts Online Shop.
Well said Maggie :-) This is also one reason why i admire Monty.
....nothing is created from nothing.... everything comes from a previous idea of behaviour and the intelligence of a teacher is in "digesting" the raw matter in order to make it easier to understand for the students, or more applicable.
You are right in saying several professionals do not recognize publicly the teachers they have mutuated ideas of methods from and maybe claim as their original ones.
I don't think Monty as any original master (we in Martial arts recognize persons like Monty as root masters, founders of a SCHOOL) is bothered by this kind of things but maybe is more concerned principles are correctly intepreted and applied, practice and a fresh look into matters makes the student to discover particulars sometimes even the teacher is not aware of.
I do agree with You in the point it should be more willingness to recognize the merits to root masters but not ma
..ny have this kind attitute and for sure they are so concerned in trying to make money they forget who the real and only teacher is..... the Horse!
Hi Maggie - I had a look at the Andrew McLean website, very interesting. It looks as though he has a straightforward, no nonsense approach that does closely resemble Monty's in a number of ways. It is nice to see other people offering a similar way of training, without force or fear or pain. I guess in then end it doesn't matter which non violent method you use - Monty Roberts, Andrew McLean, Pat Parelli or others, the message is still the same. Personally I like the Monty type method as it is very simple and striaghtforward and easy to understand. The Parelli method as a total training system for some reason just does not appeal to me as much, although I do like his view on 'Horsenality', and there are other bits of Parelli that I do like and find useful.
I'm sure this might have come up somewhere else on the forum, but does anyobody here use a mixture of different methods? Is is possible to combine them and not confuse the horse? What do other people think?
While I have looked into many methods of training I've found Monty's methods are complete and effective. So far I haven't found any problem that Monty hasn't had a simple or mostly simple and effective solution for. So for me why incorporate another training philosophy when Monty's methods do it all. In fact now when I look at others methods I think to myself "They're not speaking the horses language, they're trying to get one result but their body language is telling the horse something else. However, Monty's always looking for better ways so we need to keep an open mind. A perfect example of this is Flo and teaching a horse to move off of pressure. I found Flo's methods much more effective and simpler then I did Monty's. So I guess there's always room for new idea's.
I have always loved to read, and in doing so, have learned several things when I was a kid, that when I got horses, I tried, some worked, some didnt, some made sense, some were so stupid I didnt even bother with them. All my life I have tried anything that made sense to me and sounded lke a good idea, so I sort of use a lot of different ways of doing things, including things I learned from the horses, who ARE the best teachers. I just found out about Monty back in the 90s, and have been using many of his techniques ever since. Just before I found out about him, I saw a demonstration on gentling a wild mustang by Frank Bell, and liked what I saw there too. It seems to me the best trainers all pretty much do things the same way,or close, they just call it different things. The first method I ever tried, belive it or not, I got from a novel for young adults called Sand Dune Pony, where a boy and his friend caught and gentled a wild mustang, and I never forgot what the old man said to the kid, "I am too old to ride a bronc and you arent going to try, we will do this the easiest way for the horse and you." I guess the author must have gentled a few, because the way they did it in the book works for the most part. When I first started gentling horses, I did things the way they did, except for roping the horse, since I cant rope a fence post if Im standing next to it, much less a horse, and added a few ideas of my own.I still try different things if they seem to make sense, and if the horse gets confused, I start over with something they know about.
I think you are right Phantommustang, the best trainers area all pretty much on the same page in that they seem to see things from the horse's point of view, rather than forcing stuff on them that they don't understand. If you remember back to your schooldays there were probably one or two teachers that were better than the others because they explained things clearly and allowed you to ask questions and make mistakes without being punished, and praised you when you got it right. It is encouraging to see that these kind of methods are becoming more mainstream, but there is still a lot of education to be done. Twice in the same day I had people tell me that my spooky nervous gelding needed "a smack round the head" and "a kick in the guts". Perhaps that's how these people were taught at school?!
I'm so glad my horses are never around that kind of attitude, I only ride for pleasure around my house and up the mountain so my horses don't travel to events or board at someone else's place so I don't have to worry about abuse or bad attitudes.
My horses are also kept at home, but I have some very nosy and opinionated neighbours. One in particular notices everything I do in the paddock with my horse and can't help offering unwanted 'advice'!
To get back to the original point that Maggie was making about complimentary training ideology, wouldn't it be great if there was some kind of international umbrella organisation that all of these non-violent trainers could belong to? Even if their own individual ways of doing things differ slightly, as long as they are all aiming towards a common goal. That way the message might get across - the lobbying power would be huge!
I just read the article about self carriage on the Andrew McLean website - very interesting. The articles are well written and thoughtful, if you like Monty's methods it is worth checking out some of the articles as a lot of the content backs up Monty's principles.
Pleased you enjoyed them too emlaw. I found them very interesting and simiar to Monty in some respects yet quite different in others. For example Andrew seems to dislike the concept of join-up yet I find it so beneficial and such a good way of gaining a horse's trust. It is fascinating to have the different views. I am tempted to book in to Andrew's September clinic with Tricka but I don't want to confuse her as she is doing so nicely even with her sore back!
Yes Maggie, he does not seem very keen at all on round pens altogether, which is interesting. But I guess the the aim for the end result is the same - a willing horse that has been trained in a sympathetic non violent way. His explanations are extremely detailed and his approach is very scientific and like you said, very similar to Monty's in some respects but not in others. I guess every trainer develops their own style, but I like that both he and Monty are very down to earth and practical in their approach. I'm not overly fond of some of the more airy-fairy "horse whispering" stuff that is around.