Today’s session was similar to the one Lightning told you about in yesterday’s post. Again we did both yard work and field work, again Sasha joined Laddie and Lightning for the training, and again one of Sasha’s caregivers joined us, in this case, Sasha’s mommy, Erin.

There were also differences. We used different locations, and Laddie did no yard training and ran only one blind and one mark, though both were 300y+ with significant challenges. Laddie did a nice job, and Sasha made good progress on both the yard and field work we did with her.

Lightning again did well on the formal obedience practice, which was the same as yesterday’s. For the field work, I again ran him on two sets of four retrieves each, using a holding blind, a mat, stickmen, and a gunner (Erin this time) throwing marks. Like yesterday, we used black bumpers exclusively for Lightning. In fact, the first set was virtually identical to the two sets Lightning described in yesterday’s post.

And Lightning’s returns on the first set were once again unsatisfactory, even with him wearing a 15’check cord. I thought he’d show progress from yesterday, but he really didn’t. So for today’s second set, I made some changes to the setup.

First, I took away one of the stickmen, so the new setup had only one stickman. And second, I almost doubled the distances from the start line to where the marks were being thrown, though it meant longer, more tiring walks for me on the poorman marks.

It may seem strange, but I was so confident those changes would solve Lightning’s put returns that I didn’t even put on his check cord for the second set, though he still wore his training tab for steadiness training on the two marks Erin threw.

And I was right. With the longer marks and only one stickman, Lightning came straight back with all four marks, even delivering them to hand. He was also steady on Erin’s last throw, so I never let the tab become taut.

Good progress. I think we’ll be ready for additional challenges, such as adding back the second stickman, and then proceeding down the flow chart, soon.