Why is hind leg control important?

It´s many dog sports that requires heel work. For example Obedience, Rally Obedience and Heelwork to Music. For a good heel work the dog needs to have a solid understanding of where the position at the side (left or right), and in the front is. When the dog have a solid understanding of where the position is, the dog also will be able to all the time actively adjust to the correct position in heel work. For the dog to keep the position, and be parallell and aligned with you, the dog needs a good hind leg control.

In this course i will refer to many of the FCI signs in Rally Obedience, and also the FCI Regulations for Rally Obedience. The reason why I want to focus on the Regulations, is because I base my training goals for what is written in the Regulations. This can be very useful if you aim for training FCI Rally Obedience, but also useful if you want to focus on a better heel work in general in other dog sports.

If we look at FCI Rally Obedience in particular, there are some arguments that stand out for why a good hind leg control is useful;

• In a Rally Obedience course there is a lot to accomplish in only 2-3 minutes. If the dog has a good heel work it is also easier to be ready for the next sign in the course.
• The FCI Regulations for Rally Obedience requires that the dog has to be parallell and aligned in almost all exercises (where in the FCI Regulations you find this, I will show you in Module 1, Lesson 1)