Feel, Timing, Consistency, What is that all about?

By: Angie Snell www.its-smart-horsmanship.webstarts.com from the May 2014 Issue of Local Horse Magazine

Lots of words get thrown around by those in the horsemanship game, but what do they all mean? And why are they important. Let’s take a quick look. 

Consistency:

Consistency is doing the same thing, the same way, over and over again. This is probably the most important thing when training a horse, because even if you have great timing if you’re asking a different way each time it’s going to be hard for the horse to understand. Whereas consistency with bad timing may still result in the horse eventually understanding.

Timing:
Horses learn in the moment, so timing refers to the ability to release and/or click right that the exact moment a horse does the right thing.

Feel:
Feel is a little bit harder to explain, and can have several meanings depending on who you’re talking to. Feel is about the ability to feel the slightest changes especially on the end of a lead or the reins. Or to feel how much weight is on reins and leads etc. It may also refer to feeling and connecting with the horse in a less physical way.

Repetition:
Simply repeating an exercise over and over again.

Desensitising:
To desensitise or habituate means to teach a horse to accept scary objects or noises, such as tarps, or whip cracking. There are two types, approach and retreat, and flooding.

Positive reinforcement:
To reinforce means to make a horse want to repeat behaviour, and positive means to add something he wants, such as food.

Negative reinforcement (pressure release):
Once again reinforcement means to make a horse want to repeat a behaviour negative means to take away, something that the horse wants removed such as pressure.

Positive punishment:
To punish means to make a horse not want to repeat behaviour. And again positive means to add, but this time something the horse doesn’t want, such as a smack.

Negative punishment:
As above punishment means to make a horse not want to repeat a behaviour. Negative again means to take away, but something the horse actually wants, such as his dinner.
(Punishment is not the best way to train a horse, it is however, important to understand the terms)

These are basic explanations of horsemanship words. Each has a more in-depth meaning, which should be explored if you’re serious about horsemanship!

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