This was my first time doing the nine point drill with my two senior level dogs. It was recommended to me by pros as their favorite drill ever. IF your dog needs a tune up or you want the most bang for your buck this is the drill for you, some pros say they do it once a week.
You just need nine bumpers, a field and a dog. You set up the bumpers in a 360 degree radius at all different distances, some short some long, some parked in the middle of the field with a marker, some by a natural marker or through an obstacle. I added interest with chairs and buckets and I can vary it as time goes by.
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Prinz was pretty close to perfect. He took some of the lines a little off but took his whistle sits and casts really nice. I will need to increase the difficulty for him. Very little use of the ecollar corrections today, he was learning the concept. This was basically nine cold blinds and his tail was wagging the whole time, I was super impressed and surprised with him.
Q stayed engaged the whole time with tail wagging but did make a mistake on the third point where he went for the fourth which was at the bucket, third was in the brush- I maybe should have corrected him but once he was at the blind I let him get it then sent him for the one he missed. That ended up to be a nice learning moment, I exaggerated the over cast and learned more what he responds to so it was a really good moment learning how to move him around the field. I used no ecollar corrections this time as I wanted him to grow his confidence, that was a good decision because he stayed engaged all through this challenging drill. I really really loved seeing this. This was a new concept- basically nine cold blinds! – he stayed with me, his mistakes weren’t defiant just him learning, I like to promote that. A good trainer balances things. I am so proud of him and just three years old.
It’s hard to see the setup in the videos I tried to get as much of it as I could. This is a fantastic drill that we will be doing often. In many variations land/ water.