Best Marking Drill

[TN_LAB]

Y drill, sounds very similar to Carol's W drill.

Lone gunner stands about 75-100 yards away. First bird thrown flat to the gunners left. Next bird thrown sharply angled back to the gunners left. Third bird thrown angled in at 45 degree to the gunners right. All singles. This is a top drill that the Hillman's use. They prefer orange bumpers for it in initial stages.

Isn't that the X drill?

I think the W drill in Carol's book is a blind drill

[GulfCoast]

and what book is that? no reason not to plug it here!

gulf coast - please describe the "W" drill??
.

I will try to sketch it, as its hard for me to describe. Note there are lots of different things called "W" drills by different folks. Carol has 2 great "W" drills in her book, that are different than what I am talking about. What I do came from an old field trialer that is nice enough to help me out (yell at me) with my dog from time to time. It's more a "specific configuration" of an ABC drill.

[Brad]

Carol,
Is this book the same as the book " Drills For The Retriever Hunt Test Enthusiast"

[Carol Cassity]

Carol,
Is this book the same as the book " Drills For The Retriever Hunt Test Enthusiast"

Brad:

No is the short answer. Drills for the Retriever ..... long title huh? was the predecessor to Building A Retriever. BAR has more drills and other retriever training principles and information. For the record, I did not invent the drills in the book and it is not a full training program. I do think it is a worthwhile effort and I do use the drills to help develop skills.

X marking is the angle in, angle back, flat throw – that’s what we call it, anyway. W, in the book, is setup as a blind running drill. You could use the same configuration to do marks, but the ABCD drill is what you end up with. I have found that lots of people run the same drills, they just call them different things. A field trial buddy of mine saw me running what I called “in-line blinds” and he said: “oh yeah, I’ve run those for twenty years and I call then Ladder Blinds”.

Hope this helps,

Carol

[BrettG]

I love rolling singles but as a drill I feel I can get the most out of a w drill. Set up 5 stockmen in a w configuration. Distance depends on dogs. I prefer long stations in the 200-250 range and short stations at 100-125. You can work on punch birds by throwing short stations first as singles then throw the long ones. Or work on check downs by throwing long first then short. You can also get hip pocket looks and various other concepts. So as drills go you can get alot out of a couple of w set ups in a day.

[fishduck]

Here is my version of the W marking drill. All run as singles. It really helps a dog look past the short gun to the long mark. Also works great for checkdowns.



I think this is what both Brett and Mark are talking about.
Mark Land

[GulfCoast]

Yes, I put long birds at 200-250, short birds at 50-60, and middle bird at 130-150. Its great to teach checking up in the face of a long gun, look long past a short gun, and run tight past a gun/old fall all in one drill. Then you can adjust the throws to get hip pockets/off the heels, pinch birds, you name it depending on how tight you want to run it.

[Archery1973]

Could someone explain the ABCD drill?

[artner24]

These two links should help

http://www.totalretriever.com/images/forms/lardy1.pdf

http://www.totalretriever.com/images/forms/lardy1.pdf

[Rnd]

Could someone explain the ABCD drill?

This one too. ABCD is about 7th down
http://www.kwicklabs.com/drills.htm