Last night my instructor suggested I cue the rear cross verbally. More specifically, to give Cohen my "turn" cue (verbally and physically), which means for her to turn away from me. So I'd be approaching a jump, cue the turn, then cut in behind and pick Cohen up after she jumps. I hadn't heard this suggested before. Is this common practice? Is it advisable? What do you guys think?
Yes! I had Pirate at a Barb Davis seminar last December (always do a seminar with Barb if you get a chance, she's a great instructor), and she had me teach a verbal to Pirate. I tend to use mostly front crosses, but I do need to use more rear crosses with Pirate, and for whatever reason, he just didn't seem to read them well (my other dogs have not needed a verbal for this). He picked up the verbal
fast, and it's made a huge difference.
I use "switch" as the verbal cue, and I'm trying to remember how she had us train it. I
think that we walked along with the dog roughly in heel position, gave the cue, and lured the head away from us with a treat (or tossed a toy back? Hmm... Wish I'd made note of this.) Then we'd walk up parallel to a jump, give the cue as we approached, and reward as the dog turned back to the approach side of the jump, so they were flipping away from us. It only took a few tries, and then we could use it on course.
I do have video of Pirate using his new skill:
[YOUTUBE]bR44QPi6syk[/YOUTUBE]
The first time through, I was forgetting to use the cue, so you can see where we
were at; not turning, or wide turns. Vs the nice, tight turns I got with the addition of the verbal cue. I used it on a course for the first time at our next trial, and it worked great!