Rear Cross Foundations

Squid is doing well, but I’m letting her rest for a while to make sure that she doesn’t get sick again. She’s still eating every other hour, and I’m using that as an opportunity to train some much needed skills (while watching winter sports on TV). One of them is understanding of rear crosses. It’s not hard to teach the dog to turn her head when you cross behind, the challenge is getting it under stimulus control. The only thing that should cause that head turn, is when I cross her path. If she turns her head before I have crossed her path (because I’m closing in on her or moving my arms and she’s expecting a rear cross), that would be a flick, and I don’t want to encourage that. I love that I can do agility training in front of the TV, and know that she’ll have a great understanding once we try rear crosses on jumps. Here’s a short clip from a session today: