Consistency with horses is an interesting topic, and is in my mind because of a conversation I had earlier this afternoon. Consistency probably means something completely different to your horse than it does to you.
In a conversation this afternoon, the chap I was talking with said “he isn’t doing anything with his horses because he is so busy he can’t be consistent and consistency is very important to horses“.
Clearly, to him consistency means showing up and punching a clock, being there at the same time or in the same place, and doing the same thing repetitiously. But none of that means anything to the horse. The horse is looking for a different kind of consistency, the horse is looking for you to be working on yourself.
Your horse doesn’t care what time of day you show up, what day you show up or how many times a week you show up. Your horse is more interested in you asking consistently, and rewarding consistently. Horses don’t respond well to people who pull harshly on them (because they’re mad about something) or who don’t or can’t repeat the same cue regularly when seeking a particular outcome.
If you have a temper tantrum with your horse because you didn’t get what you thought you asked for – you are lacking consistency. If you pull hard one day and soft another, you are inconsistent. If your cue to stop is to roll back on your pockets, no matter what might need to follow, that cue should never, under any circumstances change – that ought to be your very first cue.
And that my friends is consistency. It is hard for humans to be consistent, we all struggle with consistency, but the more you work at it the better everything else becomes. Horses have great memories – watch when one gets off a trailer, the first thing they do is look around, if it is at your usual trail riding place, they quickly recognize it.
If there is a white plastic bag flapping in a shrub, that wasn’t there the last time, the horse will be quick to notice. Horses thrive on consistency, it is a survival tool, when something is out of place or not right in their environment they naturally become more alert (unless you have made them dull). But they really don’t care about the time, the day or even the frequency – even though more reinforcement is, up to a point, better.