Next new drill we tried is one for ones. Mark, blind, mark, blind. I thought it would be easy for my boys since we’ve been doing mark / line drills, but NOT. This is a great one to teach them to do what you want them to do and go where you want them to go. A common theme of all of these drills, is to set it up so they WANT to do something else, but you train them to do what you want.

I set up the thunder launchers for the marks, moving them around the field from left to right. First a mark to the left, then a blind, but in between the open thunder launchers………then the mark from the second thunder launcher, then a blind to the right of the line.

The first mark was easy, it’s the first blind that was the killer. They saw the naked thunder launcher off to the right of the blind and that pulled them. Prinz actually did really good with about five casts and he picked up the blind, brought it back and was super revved for that second mark. Nailed the second outside blind. I can start increasing his difficulty, maybe fire the mark and send him for the blind first (doesn’t that sound mean LOL?) .

Q really struggled with the first blind. Finally got him to it though, his collar was not on tight enough so he wasn’t feeling his corrections which didn’t help, I thought, now he knows where it is let’s redo it but nope, he still tried to go to that naked gunner station but got to the blind quicker, with less handles the second time and didn’t veer as far off the line. He did a nice job then on the second mark and blind. After I had ran Prinz I thought I would run Q on the whole course again but reverse it, I just KNEW he’d do that inside blind correctly because he knows where it is. He nailed all else but nope, still refused to line that inside blind. Then it hit me, it’s not that he doesn’t know what I want he’s just being a jerk. I called him back to heel and gave him a fairly powerful nick / back out to that mark and what the hell, he lined it and lined it FAST. Big eye opener for me there, and he got a lot out of that session. Can’t wait to try again with a similar set up in another area and see if it resonated. Meanwhile we can do a bit of pilework in the yard.

I should add, after he nailed that blind he had the excellent reward of the last Thunder Launcher mark, he was working hard but tail was wagging and he was happy. I want them to learn but want them happy, it’s working I think I’m starting to strike, just the right balance………..

Sorry no videos of this, it was a bit rainy so, I didn’t want to monkey with the camera.