A very special Team Small Dog review of Daisy's Peel's Blind Cross Video, "Look Back".

Daisy Peel, bold and intrepid blind crosser and big huge world champion of dog agility, asked me to review her new video on Blind Crosses. This is an exciting and daunting subject for me, mostly because I have never, ever tried a blind cross. Our leader, my dog agility boyfriend Robert Downey Jr, has explained to us for many years the horrible dangers and pitfalls of the no-go zone. Letting your dog see your hiney causes cancer, fibromyalgia, flicks, meth addiction, and lots of naughty trips into the wrong side of the tunnel during Snooker. I have been many times tempted, but always chickened out.

I thought this would be a cool new thing to try though. Maybe not with Gustavo of the sensitive constitution, but me and Otterpop, we could go for something new and dangerous. Wait til you see the trailer for the video. Daisy's blind crosses look scary and insanely dangerous. We like dangerous, I got sucked in right away. Sort of like when the Crocodile Hunter, RIP, would roll up his sleeves and go after some kind of scaley, fanged animal in the bush. He didn't come out alive, but Daisy's doing all right. And me and Otterpop, we have dabbled in the dark arts before in the quest of her Jedi Master of Gambling Title. I think this is something we could try.

So blind crossing it will be. A new project. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? South Dakota goes out in a blaze of firestorm and the polar icecaps ooze 14% more quickly into the sea causing Finland to lose a beach? Our nation delves deeper into the worldwide recession and fossil fuels shrink away leaving us with no more plastics, facebook, combustion engines or genetically modified fertilizers? Hell. Bring it on.

Daisy, who I believe leans towards more the more Mecklenbergian side of the political spectrum, has no issues with her dog knowingly running behind her ass. She does advocates for this only happening on special occasions, however. The whole video is all about teaching this responsibly, as a skill. Kind of like, ok kids. Drinking can lead to bad things. Car wrecks, life crippling alcoholism; everyone knows wine before beer, das is fear. But if you follow these instructions for cocktail mixing, the impeccable gin and tonic with a designated driver can be your key to the city. City of bars. Blind crosses. You get what I mean.

Also, Daisy is totally fearless. A whole video featuring many shots of her shapely booty skorted ass! But no hotpants. Which you would sort of think would go hand in hand. Blind crosses, hotpants, maybe even worn with boots. Very west coast summer 2011, but noticeably absent in "Look Back."

Daisy starts out the video speaking to us from the forest. It looks a bit like one of our forests. Her dogs are all good dogs, laying there all quiet at her feet while she softly tells us about blind crossing. She is subtle and has real nice eyebrows, like pixie eyebrows. I'd like eyebrows like that. You watch her run like a bat out of hell in the video, then she is murmuring under trees in the woods. None of her dogs ever once jumps up to snatch a quail mid air out of the bushes or just flat out run away. This lends most excellent credibility to her mad dog training skilz.

So there's 3 types of Blind Crosses. Who knew?

Number 1 is the crazy insane send your dog behind your ass waving your evil arm then arm changing. Before watching the video, I couldn't even explain this to you. But it gets Daisy on helluva tight turn. Just get the video. My god. I had no idea.

Next kind, the Number 2 kind. I understand some words from my rules - decel and shoulder rotation - except here they are in a totally voodoo context. I'm going to call this kind of Blind Cross the somewhat sneaky kind.

Number 3: The no turning cue kind. This one looks really rad and dangerous. Your dog is on a straight line and you are running your ass off ahead of them and they see your butt as you cross their path. Sort of like a reverse rear cross on a straight line? Holy smokes. Nobody show my boyfriend this video.

So to teach them, she starts out showing us how to teach Side Cues. They look like dance moves! They'd probably work on Dancing With the Stars. Don't let this scare you though, because you can practice Side Cues with trees before you teach it to your dog. Once you have the trees Side Cueing, then you teach it to your dog. The way Daisy teaches it on the flat and over jumps makes perfect sense. We get side cues. I went outside and taught a bunch of trees how to do this right away. Once I got good at the trees, I showed Otterpop how to do them at the beach. I think even Robert Downey Jr. wouldn't mind this so much.

I mean, don't tell him, or his family that I'm trying them though, OK? It's a surprise.

Once Daisy starts doing sequencing, it was a relief to see my old friend front cross show up. And decel. She is speaking our language. But then we see it. The tricky bit of where a blind cross could be your friend, and dark art or not, a nifty little party trick, especially the Number 2 kind. And the crazy Number 1's are demystified! Ooh and the fast running of Number 3's! I see the light. We see a front cross make her dog land on his face, and then she blind crosses it, and tight, tight tight. I'm not going to explain it. You watch the video instead. You will see.

Also Daisy does announce some of the dangerousness of them. If you have a Gustavo type dog at home, she flat out says, maybe you stick with the fronts and rears. And I think if you are not a fast runner, you there could be consequences. But if you have the braveness, you can get ahead of your dog, and you're ready for some new skills, this might be a fun thing for you to try. I'll let you know how it goes, I haven't had time to progress past teaching them to the trees. If you're ready to learn, visit Daisy's website, and download your own copy of the video.

Let me know how it goes! And tell Daisy I sent you.