Front Crosses

At Gracie's jumping class last night we mostly worked on front crosses.  We practiced with a 180 set up (two jumps in a line with a gap between them, like - -) and a third jump to go to after the cross.  The key is to face the dog's path (the space between and on the other side of the jumps) and not back up.  Send the dog over the first jump with hand 1, side step in front of the second jump raising hand 2 to cue the jump, then continue on to the third jump with the dog on the opposite side of where they started.  The side step can be slightly forward towards the second jump too, if the dog needs an extra clue of where to go. 

Once everyone had the right idea, we did a sequence of eight jumps.  That's the most they've done so far!  We got to go fairly fast and had to put a front cross after jump 4.  It was really fun going fast with Gracie.  She's going to be a speed demon!  It would have been even better had I not tried to treat Gracie after the front cross, as our instructor was yelling at me to go and that she didn't need a treat.  She'd done the cross so well I thought she did need a treat, but afterwards I realized that taking the rest of the jumps nice and fast would have been just as rewarding with some good treats at the end.  I wish I could have tried it again, would have been lots of fun, but class was over with.  Only one jumping class left.  It went so fast!  Then the contacts class starts up which will be just as fun!  Happy agility!