Laddie has had significant experience with triples in his three years. He has his GRCA WCX, which requires a land triple, and also sometimes runs triples in HT and FT training groups.
However, recently, I noticed that his marking on the final memory-bird of a triple has become consistently weaker than his normal marking, which is typically very good. In these recent triples, sometimes he would get so far off line trying to retrieve the third mark that he'd need help from the thrower, or handling from me. Even when that wasn't the case, he would repeatedly need long hunts. That was a far cry from the dead-on marking I've often seen from Laddie, and inconsistent with the many comments experienced trainers have given me over the years about Laddie's excellent marking.
I thought that what might be happening was that Laddie had developed a low expectation of more than two marks in a series, so I decided to take a day or so to work on very simple, poorman triples, quads, and quintuple series. [By "poorman" marks, I mean leaving Laddie at the start line while I go out to throw, then returning to the line to run Laddie on the marks.] Then I would gradually raise criteria.
That plan had excellent results, so here are links to our training journal describing the process:
- Background and foundation work
- Transition
- Interrupted triples
- Interrupted out-of-order indent triples
- Group training
By the end of the process, any problem Laddie may have had with his memory for more than two marks seemed to have been taken care of.
Posts
