Red zone drill

I developed this drill because occasionally Laddie and I have difficulty at the end of a land blind, the area that Pat Burns calls the red zone. For some reason, just as Laddie and I seem to have the blind wrapped up, Laddie will veer off line, and sometimes even go out of control, before I'm able to recover and help him to finish the blind.

Of course I'm always setting up blinds to practice on. But Laddie doesn't necessarily have red zone problems with them, so I wanted a drill that focuses entirely on practicing that.

For the red zone drill, I use a flat field with short grass and no obstacles, hills, or other factors. At one end of the field, I use a lining pole with ribbon at the top. In front of the pile I place a number of red 2” bumpers. Then, approximately 15y to left and right, on an angle in, I place two piles of two 3” white bumpers, one stacked  on the other so as to be visible from the distance.

Now I run Laddie to the red pile from from 50y and up, so that he needs to run between the two white piles to get to the red pile. The most distance we've used is 250y, but I'm not sure there's any limit on distance, depending on the level of competition you're training for.

This drill seems to have several benefits despite its simplicity. It helps me as a handler work on the timing of my whistles, anticipating the distance that Laddie will tend to overshoot the line I want him to stop in. It helps both of us work on the no-hands Back cue, which seems to be well suited to red zone handling. It gives me a chance to remind Laddie not stop to air or dawdle on his returns. It helps with Laddie's conditioning on the kind of distances we're training.

And most importantly, the drill focuses all of Laddie's attention, and mine, on maintaining control in the blind's red zone.