Well honestly I never thought it would be so real until I saw Monty's clips on youtube and decided to join the Equus University. Yesterday I tried my first join up with out horse and I was amazed to see how it works. But I have got some questions tough;
1) After the join up and follow up the first question came to my mind was "Now what's next?" I have been riding him for awhile and I will do it again, then what’s the difference this join up would make? BTW our horse is almost 15 Years.
2) The second question I have is do I need to practice join up periodically e.g. once every month, etc.
But overall I am very impressed with Monty's method.
Regards,
Abu
Hi Abu.
Monty says that you should never do 'join up' more than 4 to 6 times with any individual horse. Once you have done 'join up' you should behave in a similar manner with your horse, ie. don't look in the eyes, walk in arc's towards them when catching etc. rather than directly towards them. Basically Monty encourages us to learn the language 'Equus'.
Maybe try the double long lining next? Its up to you really!
I'm sorry I can't be of more help but hopefully the little I have said will help you a bit! Beth
Hi Beth and Abu,
To elaborate on Monty's advice, Join-Up is a conversation that too oft repeated is annoying to the horse - as Beth says, just a few times is sufficient for them to know that you understand their language: Equus.
However, 'never' is a big word and you can Join-Up again if you feel there might be a need. An important point after achieving Join-Up is to live by the concepts of Join-Up with your horse. Trust. No force.
Thank you very much for the replies. Since I am new to natural horsemanship therefore little bit behind :((
So does the join up only for one horse and one rider? What I mean here is that I did the join up with my horse but I visit him only couple of time a week due to my work commitment. But my wife and daughters ride him very often. In this case will my horse forget about the join up I did with him. We as a family do not use any force at all and therefore he is fairly attached to us all. I guess my question is how long will a horse remember the join up? Do I have to be there every day to maintain this trust that I got through join up?
Regards,
Hi, I've got a question, too. My join-up worked great, also the follow-up. But the horse is very unexperienced in beeing double longed, and so he wants to run away as soon as I clipped in the lines in both side rings. I don't know, how I shall behave in this situation. Thanks for comments.
Jasmin
Hello Jafours,
As far as I know, join up is a communication method between the horse and the human. It is therefore not something they forget if not done often but rather something YOU establish with the horse, letting him know that YOU understand his language. With that said, your daughter and wife would need to establish THEIR clearing with your horse separately.
renjaho,
Have you tried it with one line first? perhaps then get the horse have the line while trying to touch the other leg with the dummy arm or stick so he gets used to having contact on both legs. Maybe then switch sides so the one with the line now gets the stick/dummy arm. Then try both lines. Monty talks about increment teaching and to me this makes sense. That is my suggestion though would love to hear others' thoughts too.
Hi horselover,
yes, I've tried it with one line first. It worked great. I found out that he is a little claustrophobic. This might be the main problem. I adopted an idea of Pat Parelli: I took a timber trestle and let my horse walk between it and a fence. I waited until he did it really easy-going, then downsized the distance between fence and timber trestle. And it worked great! Thank you very very much for your helpful idea, horselover! Without your ideas mine would likely not have come up to my mind.
Jasmin
Monty taught a lesson on using one lunge line and how that's bad bc it makes horses backs turn at an opposite bend then the way of the circle they're going in bc they are trying to resist the line... unless your talking about using the martingale with just one line i think thats different.