The narrator for Mike Lardy’s TRT video describes some problems that might come up when training pile work, and Mike illustrates some of the solutions. I ran into some other issues with Lightning, and I suspect other positive trainers, and even traditional trainers, might encounter the same ones or others.

But since as a positive trainer I’m not going to use an ear pinch or other physical aversives to address the problems, I thought I’d mention some of the problems I ran into and the solutions, among other possible solutions, I happened to choose:

• Problem: Hot weather. Lightning’s motivation to run even a few retrieves from pile was especially limited when daytime temps were climbing into the 70s, 80s, and even 90s. Solution: Get up before dawn and take Laddie and Lightning to the field where we’ll be working so that we can get started at first light, before it gets too hot.
• Problem: Declining interest. I’ve had difficulty arranging for an assistant to run marks lately so the dogs and I have done mostly yard work the last few days. In Lightning’s case that meant pile work. Lightning has great enthusiasm for being sent to the pile on Back, but his performance on the pickups and returns has tended to decline as he comes up with various avoidance behaviors. Solution: As soon as Lightning returns and delivers at heel, I take out a blank pistol, fire a shot, and throw the bumper he just brought me in some random direction as far as I can for him to chase and retrieve. I don’t do it every time but often enough that it’s creating high reinforcement history for the less interesting part of pile work, the return and delivery.
• Problem: Carrying bumpers by the rope. I’ve been hoping that Lightning would stop doing this on his own, and he probably would eventually, but I’m tired of it. Solution: Today I took out my picket knife and cut the ropes off several of our 2” white bumpers. We’ll do pile work with those for a while, and I’ll get some more ropes for them in the future. Note : If you haven’t decided on a favorite Every Day Carry (EDC), may I suggest the Kershaw Scallion? Wonderful knife, available in many colors and a variety of handle and blade materials.  :0)

I’m looking forward to moving on to the double T with Lightning, when we’ll really be doing some handling. But now is the time to polish up Lightning’s performance on the pure retrieve pattern of pile work, as well as training steps 2 and 3 of pile work, sit to pile and come-in from pile. Meanwhile, when we’re able to get in some field work, I feel we can never do too many singles off multiple guns, throwing in occasional retired singles and occasional doubles.