Polishing the Bandito

With Ace in "time out", the big man on campus now is Bandit.  He's been really very good in NSTRA and I expect great things from him; however, there is one little bit of polishing that needs to be made.  He just does not care for retrieving.  I force broke him early and did not use harsh methods, and he will retrieve- begrudgingly.  So, I've been working him twice per day, every day to establish that habit of prompt and speedy retrieving to hand.  We make a game of it every morning and afternoon and I rarely need to "tap" him during that last ten feet of the retrieve when he wants to spit it out and head out again.  In fact, when he comes out of the pen, he's looking for the bird in my hand now.  We just started with the baseball diamond training (where he sits at various "bases" as I toss the bird, make him whoa until I give the directional hand signal to the bird) and he seems to really like that.  We'll see how this progresses.  Another big trial this weekend.