For today’s training session, we had limited time and only one assistant, Peter. I decided to use those resources as follows:

• We would drive to a nearby ball field, large, isolated enough that we could use the blank pistol, and likely to be deserted or nearly so. A woman was playing with her daughter on a swing set far from where we’d be working, but no one else was there, so we had a good location.
• I asked Peter to throw a double for Laddie, moving from one gun station to the other, while I handled Laddie from a chair. The terrain was flat, but the marks had good distance and some trees to negotiate, and of course the memory bird was retired since Peter stayed over at the go-bird station. Laddie took a slightly outside arc on the go-bird, a straight line on the memory bird, but ran directly to both marks. Hopefully this is helping him restore his endurance and have a little fun.
• Peter then put Laddie in his crate and brought out Lightning. For Lightning, I had three goals:
  1. Start training with white bumpers rather than the various other articles we’ve been using. We’re sticking with 2″ bumpers for now.
  2. Stop depending on the check cord to guide Lightning’s return. The cord is there to help catch him if necessary, but at some point he needs to return without being guided.
  3. Begin to stretch the length of his retrieves.
• The training plan was simply to address those goals one by one, each building on the one before. Peter did all of the work and did a fine job. For example, even on his long throws, he kept them low so that Laddie wouldn’t lose sight of them in flight.
• In all, Lightning ran about 20 retrieves. He looked like he’d gladly run a thousand more, but we’ve been having success with short sessions and stayed with that approach today.
• I managed to get a video of a couple of Lightning retrieves once we reached the point where Peter was throwing the bumper good distance. Unfortunately, my voice sounds terrible, but I think it’s fun to watch Lightning’s work. So here’s Lightning retrieving at 3mo: