You can talk the talk, but......

Recently I have noticed an increase in the number of equine trainers popping up on Facebook and various blogs and web pages. Many of these "gurus" have written extensive articles expounding their various methods and offer advice for a whole host of problems. Now this in itself isn't a bad thing as far as I'm concerned, many people benefit from things they've read on the internet, I learn new things all the time from people on our equine forum. But as I've said before, there are a lot of people on forums and other social media sites who do nothing but write........

They come across as "experts" on everything from how to ride dressage to the dynamics of a horse herd. They write, they post photos, they get their clients (friends?) to write glowing testimonials, but it's all just words and they never seem to have much in the way of video evidence of their riding or horse handling.

I have been to a fair number of clinics and demos given by horse whisperers/éthologues/equine behaviourists. Some of them have been really beneficial and I have posted about them in the past. And some have been a huge disappointment, I felt I have learned nothing I didn't already know and in some cases I have felt that I already knew more than the "expert"......

On more than one occasion I've been reposting articles that sounded great to me, only to be contacted privately by someone else who has had direct experience of the trainer  in question and was hugely disappointed that they cold talk the talk but couldn't in fact walk the walk at all in reality. One time I went to a demo and got the overwhelming impression that the trainer in question was actually scared of the horses!

Then there's another internet annoyance, that of certain "experts" having a go about other people (horse owners or fellow "gurus") either directly or indirectly. Not the sort of thing a professional should be doing at all. And if you're trying to be a teacher, surely you should have thought out how to be constructive in your criticism?

So come on, experts, put your money where your mouth is........