This morning, Lightning and I began work on the double T. As Mike Lardy explains in the TRT video, the double T is the last step of yard work on land, and combines the skills of simple casting and pile work.

Lightning and I sat on the couch together two days in a row and watched Mike’s TRT presentation on the double T. Of course it’s very thorough, and we’ll adopt it into the PRT program simply by eliminating the elements of physical force and corrections.

One point of confusion did come up for me. In ”Tips” at the end of the section on double T, the narrator says, ”When teaching the line, the pile at the end of the T should be visible, but it doesn’t need any kind of obvious marker.” So when I tried to teach Lightning the 100y line this morning, I started out using no lining pole and had poor results. After a few tries, I decided to try it with a lining pole, and voilà, Lightning ran six good retrieves to the pile in a row, the last three at the full 100y distance.

When I went back to review Mike’s video, I saw that he also uses a lining pole for the long pile throughout the double T training, so now I’m not sure what that tip about not using an obvious marker is intended to mean.

A couple of other points: I didn’t use any remote casts with Lightning, but cast him from left or right side on every retrieve. Also, I included gunfire and games of catch during the work to maintain high quality pickups without shopping and prompt deliveries at heel.

Lightning had no problem with flaring, he didn’t pop, and he exhibited great drive on every send, so no remediation was needed in those areas.

Of course in the PRT program, we’ll skip Mike’s TRT step of forcing to pile, so tomorrow, we’ll start work on our next step of training the double T, sitting on whistle, both from and to the pile.