- Getting started
- About
- Selecting a retriever puppy
- Beginning to shape a retrieve
- Following in the tennis ball tradition, and other goings on
- Research call: puppy biting inhibition
- Unseen retrieves
- Lightning’s diet
- Here
- Slipper retrieve
- House training
- Sleepover
- Bumper retrieves
- First duck interaction
- Gunfire conditioning
- Duck wing retrieves and gunner thrown marks
- Hand touch
- Longer marks (with video)
- Sit on cue, plus remote sit
- Tug
- Proofing Sit and Here together
- Gunner-thrown marks
- Balancing direction of throws
- Outdoor remote Sit and Here
- Gunner-thrown marks with gunner visible
- Running marks with gunfire
- Retrieving a thawed duck
- Lightning at four months
- Continuing progress
- Strengthening the return
- Practicing sweeping gestures, Heel, and Leave it
- Training Take it and Out
- Introducing doubles
- Catching a ball
- Leash walking
- Walking singles and helping on marks
- Poorman marks
- A word of caution about multiples
- Lightning at five months
- Whistle sit
- Returning thru cover
- Trimming nails
- Waterdogs
- Lightning at six months
- Second day swimming (video)
- Introducing land-water-land retrieves (with video)
- Introduction to lead steady
- Steady with gunner-thrown marks
- Marking I
- Heeling to the start line
- Onward to Stage 2
- Formal obedience, singles with guns out, and lead steady
- Simplifying singles with guns out
- Formal Fetch step 1: Hold
- Formal Fetch step 2: the Fetch Game
- Some photos of Lightning and Laddie
- And a video
- Lightning at seven months
- Distraction proofing
- Formal Fetch step 3: Walking Fetch
- Training with a field trial group
- Formal Fetch step 4: Proofing the Walking Fetch
- Installing an off switch
- Introducing retired guns
- Thinking like a dog
- First LWL ducks, first decoys
- Simple casting, no shopping
- Doubles
- Lightning visiting workshop
- Lightning at eight months (with two videos)
- Reinforcing obedience step 1: Sit
- Ready for Junior and WC
- Reinforcing obedience step 2: Here
- Laddie blinds, Ryley gunfire, and recall for me
- At my first field trial
- Strengthening simple casting and Walking Fetch
- A steadiness test
- Pile work step 1: Back from heel
- Pile work step 2: sit to pile
- Pile work step 3: sit from pile
- Pile work step 4: come-in from pile
- Positive pile work solutions
- Daily nail trimming (with video)
- Practicing recall (video)
- Dropping the article
- Lightning at nine months (with two videos)
- Stage 2 field work
- Enhancing pickups: gunfire as clicker
- Lightning’s first workshop
- The heel and catch game
- Lightning at ten months
- Double T step 1: teach the line
- Double T step 2: sit from pile
- Double T step 3: sit to pile
- Double T step 4: come-in from pile
- Double T step 5: mini T
- Double T step 6: full T
- The zoomies
- Conventional de-cheating
- Success with full T
- Double T step 7: double T (with video)
- Swim-by step 1: teach the pile
- Double T step 8: disciplined casting
- Lightning begins PRT Stage 3
- Reducing stress to strengthen the return
- Pattern blinds
- Blind drills
- The recall loophole
- Blind drills, taught blinds, and diversion drills
- How hard is it to win a field trial?
- Lightning at a year old
- Poorman doubles and triples
- Late summer logistics
- Wagon wheel
- Preparing for workshop
- Medical issues trump training
- Lightning at fourteen months
- Using -P for keep-away
- Working on Lightning’s returns (with video)
- Retrieve tune-up
- Lightning at sixteen months
- Solid returns (with video)
- BB blinds
- Lightning at eighteen months (with four videos)
- The Walkout for keep-away
- Incremental singles and doubles for keep-away
- On the subject of breeds
- Progress, but slow
- Practicing keyholes
- Bulldogs
- The Prisoner’s Dilemma, keep-away, and patience
- Repairing keep-away: the Three Toy Game
- A bright spot
- Preparation for handling with a keep-away dog
- Progress on the Single T
- The demise of discovery training
- Running the Double T with a keep-away dog
- Early days with Lancer
- A winter training session (with photos)
- Lancer at three-and-a-half months (with video)
- to be continued . . .
Lightning's Journal 