What are Cues?
To begin the conversation about cues I’m going to ask a simple question.  If you were explaining cues to a beginner, what are some of the fundamental things you would want that person to know?  (If you are that beginner, you won’t yet be able to answer this question, but the answers others give will be of interest.  They will help you wrap your mind around cues and all that they do. So ask your dog-owning friends, ask your fellow horse owners this question:  what are some of the fundamental things you should know about cues and how they work?  What are the answers they come up with?)

I have a list of 10 key things I would want to share about cues. Before we get to my list, I want you to write down your own ten things.  Today’s post is a short one to give you time to think about this.

Once we’ve reached the end of the next section, you can look back and compare our two lists.  What did we both include?  What was on your list that wasn’t on mine?  And what did I include that you left off?

At a clinic this would be the launching point for the kind of discussion that often goes on for several PLAY FULL hours and leads to great discoveries.  Hopefully it will do the same for you.

Explaining Cues to a Beginner – Your List

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Explaining Cues to a Beginner – My List

I could write out my list of ten key concepts here, but instead I am going to treat them more like Christmas presents under the tree.  I’m going to give them to you one at a time. That way you can “unwrap” them slowly and take the time to explore each one before adding the next.  You’ll find my list in Part 2: Playing with Cues: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues.