Working on the Flat.

Well I originally thought I would work on crosses with Danielle this week but I fished out my Linda Mecklenburg articles from Clean Run; Handling Your Dog in Awesome Style, and I have rethought this.  I think I need to start back at the basics with her, which will be a great refresher for me also.

Linda's methods focus on communicating with your dog in a way that they understand best instead of learned cues.  She uses six different cues - motion, shoulders, location, hands, verbal and eye contact, these may be used alone or in combination.  These cues will tell your dog which direction they will be going (before and/or after an obstacle), which side they should be on, how to jump (extension, relative collection and true collection), how quickly they should be moving, etc.  This is a VERY high level explanation of what the articles contain, if you are interested in the articles they are in Clean Run from April 08 to August 09, they are entitled Handling Your Dog in Awesome Style and there are 16 parts.  This week I am going to tackle part 1 (Direction Cues) and 2 (Side Cues).

I have chosen to follow Linda's method's because I believe this is the simplest and most effective way to work as a team, my natural body cues along with some trained cues make me and my dogs a great team.  It also helps that my instructor follows the same method :).

Well wish us luck....Rhonda