Lorrie [00:00:08]:
Welcome to the Maximum Fun Agility podcast. I'm Lorrie Reynolds, owner of Maximum Fun Dog Sports. We help your agility team build your relationship, communication, confidence, and fun in training so that you can joyfully succeed on any course. In this episode, I'll talk about the importance of keeping a list of your cues to avoid confusion, duplication, or similar sounding cues for different behaviors. One of the most frequent questions I get is about verbal cues. "What's the verbal cue?" is something that every beginning student asks. My answer is always the same. Name the behavior or obstacle with a cue that makes sense to you, that you can remember.
Lorrie [00:00:51]:
Make sure it doesn't sound similar to any other cue you use. You can even get creative with cues that will make people laugh. My 16 inch tall dog's cue for lining up between my feet was "saddle up". There are some cautions when naming behaviors though. When I first started agility training, I made the mistake of following the local conventions on verbal cues. I ended up with a whole bunch of t words, table, tire, tunnel, teeter, etcetera. Although they were perfectly descriptive and easy to remember, it was also easy to spit out the wrong cue in the heat of the moment. Thankfully, my handling system does not rely on verbal cues, and so this has become a non-issue.
Lorrie [00:01:34]:
But it's easy to see how having cues that start with the same sound could trip up someone new to the sport. I made a similar mistake on my verbal cues for tricks. "Down" and "bow" sound very similar to a dog. When you are asking your dog to perform behaviors with just a verbal cue and at a distance, it's difficult to blame her for mixing 2 tricks up that have a similar sounding cue. It's important to keep cues separate and distinct for clarity. I highly recommend keeping a written or digital master list of all the cues your dogs know. Not only will it help you ensure that you don't have 2 that sound the same, it will also help you come up with new cues that are different from the ones you currently use. I maintain a list that has 3 columns, verbal cue, behavior description, and fluency.
Lorrie [00:02:26]:
The fluency column has 3 check boxes so I can check them off if it is a cue that I have just started to train, one that I'm training but isn't fluent yet, or one that my dog knows well. Once you have a list of all of your dog's current cues, it becomes a great reference for planning your training sessions. If your dog knows a lot of tricks, for example, you may see one that you haven't worked on in a while. Seeing the cue can remind you to go through a few repetitions during your next training session so your dog doesn't lose the skill. The list can also help you quickly scan to see which cues you need more work on and which ones your dog knows fluently and might just need a quick review of. You can also take the list a step further as a planning tool. Use it to create index cards, popsicle sticks, etcetera, that each have a behavior listed on them. When you need inspiration for training, randomly pick a few cards or sticks and use them to base your session on.
Lorrie [00:03:26]:
If you'd like to go the more organized route, you can separate your index cards into groups like tricks, agility, manners, and so forth, and choose cards from the group you wanna work on, then rotate those cards to the back of the stack. It's important to recognize your accomplishments with your training. Looking at your list of cues can put your training into perspective. On days when training wasn't going so well, I looked at the list of Maxx's cues so I could remind myself of how far we had come. If you have trained even the basics to have a dog that you can live with, your list of cues is probably longer than you think and can provide you with inspiration to continue when you are feeling discouraged. Here's the recap. Keeping a list of your dog's behaviors and cues can ensure that you don't name 2 behaviors with similar names, gives you an easy reference for planning your training sessions, and serves as a reminder of how far you have come together as a team. I'd like to do something new this week and include a weekly challenge to you.
Lorrie [00:04:29]:
Take a few minutes to write down your cues. You don't have to make it as fancy as my list, but it's good to have them written down. If you've got a funny one, I'd love to hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Maximum Fun Agility podcast. Check out the free resources we have available to dog owners on our website at www.maximumfundogs.com. Just click on the products tab and choose the one you want from the free resource section. See you next time.
