A photo would help us help you, if you could post one.

But I can tell you from experience that trying to pull a long cane out of a large shrub is dangerous - for you! What you do instead is find the cane you want to remove and cut it back in small sections and it will be much easier to untangle and remove, say 1 ft. chunks (or maybe 2 ft if there aren't any laterals woven in among other canes.) But make sure you have on your gloves, long sleeved shirt and safety glasses!
You may look at this as a longer than one afternoon project. Cut a cane or two into pieces and get them out of the way and take a break, studying the whole shrub and looking to see what should come out next. Take it a little at a time and you'll soon have it shaped up to your satisfaction.

Can you post a picture? Most of the time, pruning an old rose can bring it back to life. What you can do is start at the top and remove what you can, then work from the outside in and remove the intertwining canes. It may take awhile, but it will be worth it.

I agree that a photo would really be helpful. Do you know what rose it is? What color is it? Does it bloom only once in the spring or all season long? Is there any particular reason you want to prune this rose? Is it in the way or having problems? Unless there is a lot of dead wood that needs to be removed you may not have to prune it all that much. Depending on what type of rose it is it may resent a hard pruning and do poorly. And if it's a once blooming rose you may be cutting off all of this years bloom which was set on last seasons wood.

When I have to prune the big roses I do what Anne suggests. I cut it out in sections a foot or so at a time. You really don't want to just pull on the canes anyway. Besides it being very dangerous for you it will also do a great deal of damage to the remaining canes as you pull the cut one out. And you'll have to cut off the laterals as you go and remove them too.

I also suggest you start at the top and work down if possible as buford said. I've often thought a cane at the base looked totally dead only to find out when i reached the top that it wasn't dead at all but full of green leaf buds ready to sprout. Old canes can get that woody dark brown bark but that doesn't mean the cane is dead.

These are great suggestions, I appreciate them so much. I will take a picture. I don't know what type it is, and I've only ever seen just a handful of small white roses (just an inch or two wide).
I am wanting to prune it because I'd like to see more flowers, and it's just so messy looking. I dread taking it cane by cane and I definitely need some better safety equipment!
The top is the only place there is greenery and foliage, and it doesn't start until about 6 ft off the ground. There are so many brown canes and it is hard to see where they all go. It is overwhelming.
Picture coming soon!

What I have done in similar situations with unmanageable bushes, not only roses, which I don't want to hack too low, is cut at the base a cane that I think it should go and just leave it there for a day or two. All top growth of that cane will wilt and dry up and it will be easy to know then where to work slowly from the top to cut it piece by piece and remove it.
Nik

Hi lindsey, make sure you have heavy gloves and eye protection. Also, if it's cool enough to wear a jacket to cover your arms. I have a canvas jacket that I usually wear when pruning in the cooler weather. It's almost impervious to rose thorns.

here is picture one of two. if I cut the canes from below there will be nothing left at the top.

i've only ever seen maybe 4-5 small white flowers, and i've lived here a year and a half. don't know what kind it is.

That does look challenging! If it were my rose, I'd start at one side of the bush, go along to the top and down the other side, shearing off 1 1/2 to 2 feet all the way across. You'll then have better access to any deadwood in there and can take that out as much as possible. I would water, fertilize and mulch the rose, and I think in a short time you'll see a lot of new growth and hopefully flowers, unless it blooms only once in the spring. If it repeats you should see a lot of buds along with the new leaves.

Lady Banks I think!

Ingrid's approach sounds good to me; I would add that it might be best to think of the renewing of this rose as a 2-3 year project,however. Maybe the first year,do the shearing thing, and take out any dead wood,fertilizing, watering and mulching as Ingris says. Then, see what the rose does; hopefully the plant itself will then be able to "tell you what it wants" as far as pruning goes. bart

Does it get more sun a different time of day? It might be growing to get light and will want to do that again.

And it looks like it is fighting with the ivy at the bottom, that might take away some of the water/fertilizer for the plant.

Are those white flowers tinted pink? Kind of looks like Cecil Brunner. If it was my bush and it got some more light, I would be tempted to run wire from one metal post to the next on either side at a couple of heights and start training her horizontally to cover the fence. I would leave the last canes near the top of the fence since she already likes it there.

But if it is a Cecil or Lady Banks, I would probably wait until after it blooms in the spring.

I really appreciate your tips. I think it will take a few years, that is a good approach. The flowers are white, with possibly a very slight pink tinge. Does this mean it's a Cecil? I will look it up. I love the wire training idea.

If it has white in it I doubt that it's Cecile Brunner. Also, if that's ivy invading the bush, you really do need to get rid of it as Kippy suggested. Personally I wouldn't begin to train the plant to be a climber just yet, since it's such a tangled mess with lots of deadwood that needs to be cut out. You need for it to be a manageable size to accomplish that. In a year or two when it's been cleaned up and you see some long canes you can still begin to train it.

If it has prickles (thorns) it is not Lady Banks. CB can be a very pale pink, esp in hot sun; she has small blooms with lots of petals.

the few flowers I saw last year seemed white to me with lots of petals. but the plant definitely has plenty of huge thorns. any other photos I could take to help identify?