Bird boy blinds, or BB blinds for short, do not appear to be part of Mike Lardy’s TRT program, but they are widely used by traditional trainers and provide a useful drill for a dog like Lightning in Stage 3 of the PRT program, corresponding to TRT Transition.

BB blinds are sort of the handling equivalent of walking singles for marks. As the handler sets up at the start line with the dog, an assistant walks out into the field with a bunch of retrieval articles. One by one, the assistant places an article on the ground and steps away, and the handler sends the dog to pick up the article, practicing handling cues along the way.

Here are some details covering the specific version of BB blinds that I’m currently using with Lightning:

• Sometimes I handle, sometimes one of my assistants handles and I act the bird boy. I feel that having Lightning work with various handlers strengthens his understanding of what we’re practicing.
• We generally use a mat at the start line for Lightning to set up on.
• We randomly run Lightning from either side of the handler. We also randomly have the bird boy step away to either side of the blind, generally about 10y. Over time the dog practices all four combinations of sides.
• We use 2″ red bumpers as our articles. I believe some trainers begin with white bumpers.
• Currently we plant a lining pole just behind the retrieval article. We may stop using a lining pole in the future.
• We start at around 70y and gradually lengthen the blinds to 200y or more during the session.
• The first step of the handler’s cueing sequence is to position the standing dog so that he/she is facing the blind. It’s important for both marks and blinds for the dog to be aimed correctly before sitting down.
• Cue “dead bird”, then, if necessary, “sit”. The dog gradually learns that “dead bird” means a handling retrieve rather than a mark, so control will be paramount and the dog is not being asked to hunt as is the case on a mark.
• If necessary, the handler adjusts the dog’s position until the dog is locked in on the blind, with back, head, and eyes all in line. You can adjust the dog’s position by using Here and Heel verbal cues along with physical body language and hand motions, tapping on the legs, and so forth. You can also have the dog stand up and sit back down in the improved alignment.
• Once the dog is aligned, the handler places his/her hand vertically just in front of the dog’s head, so that the dog’s head will almost brush the hand while launching. Actual physical contact would be illegal. Some handlers move their hand while launching, but many handlers believe it is preferable to hold the hand still, like a gun sight.
• The hand is an affirmation that the dog is locked in correctly. If the dog looks away, the handler lifts his/her hand away and says Nope, Uh-uh, or some equivalent. When the dog looks back in the correct direction, the handler says Good and puts his/her hand back into position.
• As soon as the dog is locked in, the handlert sends the dog immediately. A delay tends to cause the dog to lose confidence in his/her alignment.
• Most handlers launch the dog using the dog’s name for marks, but using the cue “Back” for blinds. We always use Back for blinds, including BB blinds. Again, the dog gradually learns to distinguish between the hunting mindset of a mark and the control mindset of a blind with that extra information.
• The handler may also use loudness of the launch cue to indicate distance of the mark or blind. I believe that’s valuable for marks, but I feel that a quiet Back is usually best for blinds. The dog does not need to know in advance how far the blind is. The dog’s mindset needs to be that the dog will get all navigational information during the blind from the handler.
• The dog may be able to line the blind, since the dog watches the article being planted, the lining pole is visible, and the bird boy is nearby. Ideally, the handler would let the dog line the blind at least half the time to build and maintain motivation for the drill.
• But some of the time, even if the dog is on a good line, the handler cues a whistle sit, then uses a verbal or visual Back cue, or both, to send the dog the rest of the way. For a dog in the PRT program, BB blinds are a good way to focus on training a high quality whistle sit.
• If the dog slips the whistle, the handler instantly calls out “Sit”. The dog will eventually learn to respond to the whistle and the verbal Sit will be unnecessary. Only the whistle is used as a sit cue in competition.
• If the dog doesn’t sit even on the verbal cue, the handler calls out, “Pick it up,” the assistant rushes to pick up the article before the dog gets to it, and the handler walks out to the dog, gently slips on the dog’s lead, and walks the dog back to the start line, using little or no additional communication. This Walkout ritual, though quiet and gentle, has enormous impact on the dog’s behavior, and can be used throughout the dog’s career to train and fine tune the dog’s response to handling cues.
• If the dog gets to the blind before the assistant is able to reach it on a Sit refusal, is not the end of the world. The dog should never be punished for a successful retrieve. It’s simply a lost training opportunity for the whistle sit, not a big deal. Just call the dog in. Granted the dog has been reinforced for ignoring the Sit cue, which is a step in the wrong direction, but hopefully it doesn’t happen too often. To make it less likely, don’t blow the sit whistle when the dog is too close to the blind for the verbal Sit and Pick It Up to be used if necessary.
• Some trainers get in a habit of cueing Sit just as the dog reaches the blind. While that is sometimes necessary in competition, it can be risky to practice it too much even if you’re confident the dog will take the Sit. If the dog begins to anticipate your sit whistle and inadvertently learns to automatically at the sight or scent of the blird, that counts as a pop in competition and can ruin a dog’s career. I believe that most judges will not count it against the dog if the handler uses a “safety” whistle to prevent an overrun when the dog is next to the bird and the dog simply picks the bird up rather than first sitting, so I allow that response in practice as well. To distinguish a safety whistle from a true Sit, I often immediately whistle come-in afterwards: “tweet, tweet-tweet-tweet.” That combination becomes the whistle equivalent of, “You’re right near the bird, fetch it up.”
• Speaking of popping, it’s a minor fault if it happens occasionally, especially on blinds, but must not occur often. Watch carefully to see whether it is increasing with whatever approach you’re using to deal with it. If it is increasing, you are inadvertently reinforcing the pop rather than training the dog not to do it. With Lightning, if he turns to face me when launched, I simply lower my hand to my side and quietly say, Nope, come on in. So far, that seems to be gradually extinguishing his occasional popping. It probably happens when I’m not letting him line the blind frequently enough, so I add more of those freebies to the session. In any case, I’ll save a larger discussion of popping for another post.
• In Lightning’s case, the handler throws his ball for him once or twice after each delivery. That minimizes incidents of keep-away on the return.

All the contingencies I’ve discussed may result in the BB blind seeming complex for you and/or your dog at first, but keep at it until it becomes a simple confidence-building tool. Then you can use it even in the future when needed, to tune-up your dog’s whistle sit.

The last several sessions, Lightning has had no incidents of keep-away on his returns. The last couple of sessions, I’ve been running Laddie on short versions of the same setups I’m running Lightning on. Laddie is not completely healed from his surgery, but he craves training so much, and these short setups don’t seem to be slowing his healing.

So, for example, three days ago, Lightning ran alone, a total of a dozen triples, 36 retrieves. That was a bit much at those distances. But the last two sessions, I alternated Laddie and Lightning, so that each dog only ran six triples, and with breaks in between.

As I mentioned, Lightning is getting a variety of handlers and retrieval articles. We also randomly alternate throwing to both sides and running him from both sides.

Here’s a video from a few days ago. Annette is taking our video, Peter is handling, and Liza and I are throwing a double.

 

As Lightning turns 16 months old, temps have dropped into the 20s with wind chills into the teens and below, and snow flurries are becoming common. Lightning is training almost every day, but unfortunately without his training buddie. Laddie had a Stage 2 mast cell tumor removed from his forearm several weeks ago and it’s still healing.  

In terms of our PRT program, Lightning is well into Stage 3 for land marks, is also in Stage 3 for land blinds, and is in Stage 2 for water work. He’ll have to stay in that last stage till winter is over, since it’s too cold to train in water, but I expect to continue his progress on land in the meantime. 

In one way Lightning is not like other dogs at this stage of training: we always have the handler throw Lightning’s red ball for him once or twice after he’s delivered the last article of a series. This seems important to Lightning, because his performance diminishes markedly if we forget to do it. Of course we’ll need to fade it eventually since training equipment is not permitted in competition, but it keeps Lightning’s performance at a high level for now so I feel it’s worth continuing to use it. 

For marking, Lightning runs a lot of doubles, some singles, and some triples. Distances are sometimes short, often up to 200y, sometimes even more, with factors such as wind, hills, and high cover. I rarely have the article thrown into high cover, though. To encourage high quality marking, we usually follow the guidance, “Hard to get to, easy to find.” Every once in a while we do throw into cover, however, to introduce that skill gradually. 

When Lightning needs to hunt on a mark, I handle only when he clearly makes the decision to avoid a factor. I allow him to hunt without help as long as he stays in the area of the fall, but call for help from the gunner if he gets too far afield. I’m probably more likely to call for help than a lot of trainers, because I want Lightning to have a well-developed sense of Plan B: When you forget where the fall is, look for the gunner to get your bearings. And I handle as little as possible on marks because I don’t want Lightning to start popping. Eventually we’ll need to practice handling on marks, since it’s needed occasionally in competition, but it’s not something we work on now. 

We use a lot of configurations for doubles, triples, and singles off multiple guns. Sometimes the guns are widely spaced, sometimes we run hip-pockets and reverse hip-pockets which are quite tight, sometimes a single gunner throws multiple marks either from the same spot or by moving to different spots for each throw, and sometimes we retire a gunner. By end of winter, we’ll add more complexity, as we adapt Mike Lardy’s land marking training concepts from the TRT advanced phase. 

We use a wide spectrum of retrieval articles for marking, including: white, black, and black/white bumpers, with and without streamers, 2″ and 3″; duck and pheasant dokkens; and birds, frozen and thawed. 

For marking series, most of my assistants like to handle as well as throw, so about half the time, I’m one of the gunners rather than the handler. We also train in a wide variety of locations and orientations. The idea is for Lightning to generalize the principles of retrieving as much as possible without tying them to particular setups. 

For marking, Lightning has two intermittent flaws we still need to work on at times. One is that he occasionally goes into keep-away mode after picking up the article. We address that by having the handler return to the vehicle until Lightning brings the article, and by running Lightning on a long line as needed. Sometimes we keep the mark within the length of the line so the handler can hold on. Sometimes we run long marks but with Lightning wearing the line. None of those measures is needed very often. Sometimes we get thru an entire session without any incidents. 

The other flaw is that Lightning sometimes picks up the go-bird on a double and then runs with it to the memory-bird, where he switches articles and returns to the handler with the memory-bird. The handler can then send him back to pick up the go-bird, but that pattern is called a switch and results in a DQ in competition. When Lightning starts doing that, we repair it by running him on a long line with the go-bird short enough that the handler can hold on and prevent the switch. As soon as Lightning stops trying to switch, we can remove the line and stretch out the go-bird again. 

Because of Lightning’s occasional keep-away, which seems clearly to be an avoidance behavior associated with stress based on when it occurs, I’m still doing relatively little handling with him. For example, we haven’t gone back to drills such as wagon wheels yet. But he does seem comfortable running cold blinds as long as 200y, either with or without an orange lining pole, and takes whistle sits, and casts, with great enthusiasm. He has too many cast refusals — that is, slipped whistles and casting in the wrong direction — for competition, but he’s coming along and having fun with his blinds. 

One handling drill we do use, which I learned from a trainer and isn’t in the TRT program as far as I know, consists of a setting up a series of lining poles at distances from short to long, each with a pile of bumpers, and then running Lightning on each of them, starting with shortest one first and then stretching him out. I think Lightning enjoys, and learns a lot from, that drill, without it being too stressful for his current level of development. The guy I learned it from would set up the identical course day after day, but I haven’t been doing that. Maybe that would be better, I don’t know. 

I’ll end this post by mentioning what a relief it is that we finally found a solution to Lightning’s keep-away habit, which at times seemed to be getting worse rather than better, depending on what approach I was experimenting with to address it. In all honesty, at times it seemed almost hopeless. Yet here we are, practicing pretty much as normal for Lightning’s stage of development, with keep-away ever diminishing and hopefully someday to be entirely in the rearview mirror.