Team Fernandezlopez

So I set up the Annie Pyle rear cross exercise, and elicited some help from her students to test some theories I have been thinking about for a few weeks. I handle all of my rear crosses the same: I drive the diagonal line between 2 jumps, as if to grab my dog’s tail, running fast and hard. Unfortunately, there are times in trials where a sharp turn is required, and my dog would drive forward off course on those rear crosses no matter how I called or turned/ran.

I experimented with different positions and different motions in this video. I think there are essentially 2 types of rear crosses: slight turns where the dog needs a lot of forward motion (extension) as in jump #7a-b, and sharp turns where the dog needs to add a stride before the jump (collection) as in jumps #7c-d. Usually, your dog will be better at one than the other. The differences between 7a and 7b can be handled according to your preferred system of cues; likewise between 7c and 7d.

Drive the line or give the dog lots of room? Based on my sample size of 1 crossover Greg Derrett dog, I conclude that driving the line gives you the better turn at the wing and more clearly distinguishes this from the traditional decel stop (where the dog does not rear cross but should collect and turn toward you).

So are decels okay for a GD handler? In Clean Run pages 18-21 September 2010 Nancy Gyes, a GD handler, gives a compelling argument that one should NEVER decelerate on a rear cross because she believes that deceleration should ALWAYS mean the dog turns TOWARD the handler. Clearly, I am contradicting Nancy here. I think as long as you drive the diagonal line, deceleration is okay on a rear cross and will help the dog collect and turn better. In my video, after 30+ rear crosses in a row, I threw in a normal decel stop where the dog is expected to jump and turn toward me and NOT flick away/rear cross to test if I had broken my cue–my dog did the right thing, and this is shown in the last exercise you see on the video.

In conclusion, I think it’s legitimate for a GD handler to use decel/accel and some positional cues on rear crosses as long as you are always driving the diagonal line. I would combine an accel while rear crossing further away from the jump to cue extension, and I would decel stop near the jump to cue collection.

It may be that Nancy is ultimately correct, and over time my dog will begin to flick away (turn the wrong way) on simple turns, but I am comfortable enough with my conclusions to put this to the test on course. And yes, I’ll ask Greg about it when I see him.