Field Guide · Glossary
Emergency U-turn
Skills and cuesA trained cue that turns a dog and handler around and moves them away from something before it becomes a problem.
How it works
It is a management skill rather than a behavior-change one: nothing about how the dog feels is being altered, distance is simply being bought. The value is that it happens on one word, without the handler having to haul on a leash or explain anything to the dog. Like any skill, it has to be fluent before it is needed, which means practicing it on empty streets where nothing is happening, so the cue means turn and go rather than something bad is about to happen.
What it looks like
A handler rounds a corner and sees a loose dog a hundred and thirty feet ahead. They say the cue, both turn together, and they are walking the other way within two seconds, before their dog has fixed on the other dog at all.
Commonly confused with
- Management
- Management is the whole category of arranging things so a behavior cannot happen. An emergency U-turn is one trained skill inside that category, for the moments arrangement did not cover.
Related terms
Where this comes up