"Last night the Basic Cues and Manners Class played Mind Your P's and Cues. They had just learned STAY and LEAVE IT in their fifth week of class. It was a welcome change in pace to the normal learning pattern. My assistant said "they LOVE this!" What we noticed was that people were very busy and interacting positively with their dogs making a huge difference, of course, to the responses they were getting. The dogs were engaged because the people were engaged. It was fun seeing how they put their cues together to present to the class and it also gave me, the instructor, a chance to see where they need help. What I added was a learning experience of "chaining behaviors". So after they had practiced, I said they could only click and treat at the end of their set of five skills. This was a great way for them to start to understand in a basic's class the "chaining of behaviors" and all the students got it right away. It was an ah ha moment and an easy transition to now start to stop clicking for strong behaviors and string them together so the dog works harder and develops a really great performance of the cues. You could see the strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of the instructor. We have two more classes and I may bring this game out again in each class (although I know you are using this as a graduation exercise - to me it fits really well at any time). I will try this in other classes too changing up the cards, making it harder and maybe even for my aggressive/reactive students using handling technique cards...hmmmm - thanks for letting me give this a try! Great idea and I think anyone would love doing it in their classes! SUCCESS!"

Diane Garrod

Canine Transformations Learning Center (cTLC)