Working on Cues from Behind
This is a fun and challenging exercise. I was able to see how my verbal cues faired when Tyson couldn’t see any body language. Now I can see that we could use some work on ‘Sit Pretty’ because he really relies on my hand signals. It’s also interesting how subtle my hand signal could be for him to understand what I wanted since he could barely see it when he was behind me -dogs read our body cues so well – think Clever Hans! His struggle with ‘Sit Pretty’ could also be an indication of a weakness in my verbal cue. It’s probably not clear. I imagine saying ‘Sit ‘with ‘Pretty ‘ would be confusing, kind of like saying ‘Sit Down’ which I hear a lot of people saying to their dog. Putting Sit and Down together as one cue, when they are two separate cues would certainly result in some confusion on the dog’s part.
