Lightning’s pile work has steadily improved in each session. Today we worked at 50y and ran a dozen retrieves (half N-to-S and half S-to-N), and I only fired the gun five times, enough to discourage shopping. We had four retrieves with a single whistle Sit, and one with two whistle Sits en route.

Lightning’s work is not yet perfect. For example, he loops out to the right on his sits, and sometimes he  plays around during his return rather than coming straight back.

In addition, he’s lost some of the quality in his coming to heel with the bumper. We’ll work on each of those problems; this post addresses that last one.

Here’s the game I used to work on Lightning’s Heel response. As he and I walked back to the van, Lightning world run around with a bumper. After a few seconds, I’d call Heel, or sometimes Here and then Heel. Using an open palm to guide him, I’d swing him around to heel position on either side, he’d sit (often uncued), and I’d take the bumper. Then, without delay, I’d step back a couple of feet with Lightning still in a sit and eyes locked on me, then toss the bumper in an arc for him to leap up and grab. He’d run around some more and we’d do it again, gradually moving closer to the vehicle.

A bonus of the game is that I’d toss the bumper so Lightning would catch it in the middle, giving him practice carrying it correctly in the context of excited play. 

Lightning found this game great fun and his responses to Heel rapidly improved. We’ll continue playing it in coming days, possibly even on occasional retrieve deliveries. I expect to see that same improvement carry over into Lightning’s pile work and field work, eventually helping provide reliable, high quality deliveries in competition.