Understand Your Horse

What is Natural Horsemanship? Natural Horsemanship is the term used by lots of people these days to describe a certain way of working with horses.  Many people associate natural horsemanship with specific trainers such as Monty Roberts or Pat & Linda Parelli and all three have undoubtedly worked hard to promote their training programmes.  There are other names for 'natural horsemanship' too:  Parelli Natural Horse-Man-Ship, Silversand Horsemanship, Intelligent Horsemanship, Gentle Horsemanship and Positive Horsemanship to name but a few.
Some natural horsemanship practitioners will tell you that their way is the best and that you should only work on their programme.  Others will suggest that you look around and take what you can from a number of different horsemanship trainers.   Horsemanship is really about being able to listen to what the horse is telling you and working with your horse to help him understand what you'd like him to do.    It's about the relationship that develops between a horse and his handler, about trust and mutual respect and most of all - it's about listening to your horse!
Natural Horsemanship for Kids Fun4ponies.com is one of the fastest growing pony websites on the internet and is available FREE for children to learn about ponies and pony behaviour with online pony lessons, pony activities and games.     Sometimes called parelli4kids and based on natural horsemanship skills, fun4ponies has an online pony forum where members can add pony stories, write pony poems, ask pony questions and even write their own pony blog.  There is a gallery to upload pony pictures and lots of friendly advice from people all around the world!  JOIN NOW!	Me & My Horse As his hooves pounded on the ground That's when I found This is where I want to be My horse and me Forever together Together forever That's where I want to be My horse and me   This lovely poem was written by fun4ponies member LoveHorses-x and will be featured in the next fun4ponies book "Understanding Pony Signals".

Natural Horsemanship means using a rope halter and a western saddle doesn't it?

My Teacher - the Horse! You can improve your own horsemanship by taking more notice of what it is that your horse is trying to tell you, by putting the horse first, thinking about life from the horse's point of view and making things as easy as you can for the horse to understand. Good horsemanship has nothing to do with what type of tack you use or whether you ride western or english.  It has everything to do with who you are as a person!