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In yesterday’s post, I described a session of Lightning learning to run gunner-thrown marks with the gunner throwing LTR.

Today we returned to the same location, but this time Liza set up at 2 o’clock, so that she was throwing RTL. I think that training in the same location made it easier for Lightning to learn the concept of returning to the start line. But Liza’s new position had no trees or shrubs for her to hide behind or blend into.

Nonetheless, it worked. At first, Liza sat on a chair, kept her hood up, and turned her face away except when she was throwing. I waited in the vehicle again but communicated with Liza and Peter via radio. For the later retrieves, I asked Liza not to turn her face away, and finally to put her hood down, making her fully visible.

Once again using the strategy of Peter and Liza alternating throws, but this time with me sometimes using the radio to call for Liza to throw several times in a row, Lightning seemed to become more and more confident in executing the retrieve pattern. Yes, he would focus intently on Liza when she called hey-hey-hey and swung the bumper, but once she threw it, he was off like a rocket to the fall. I watched his eyes and he completely ignored her once he started his retrieve. He just raced to the bumper, grabbed it, spun around, and brought it back to Peter at the start line.

By the way, although Peter was prepared to capture Lightning using the check cord when he ran past as he has done in previous sessions, today that was not necessary. Instead, Lightning was bringing the bumper back to Peter. In most cases, he also didn’t take long to drop it. I have asked both Liza and Peter to make their throws the instant Lightning dropped the bumper since we began retrieve trading a couple of weeks ago, and I believe that has helped him realize that avoiding the handler on his return, or hanging onto the bumper, delayed his opportunity to chase the next mark, which is much more fun to him than standing around.

Like yesterday, Lightning’s work today was flawless in terms of returning to the handler rather than the gunner on every retrieve. Next session, we’ll start to add distance and see whether Lightning can still return correctly as the picture stretches out.