I might guess that she was anticipating the fact that you were going to throw a mark from the white bucket. What if when you changed directions you brought the white bucket in ran the blind and then took the bucket out with you to throw the mark. I might even just go out and fire a dry shot, run the blind and then the next sequence go out and throw the mark. M did something similar on Sunday. We were running the diversion drill and when we stepped to the line she saw the pails sitting in the field and locked right on them. When I got her lined on the blind she gave me a no go. So Don said to take 3 steps forward and then send her. This worked because it broke her concentration on the pails. The rest of the drill was good.
The weather over the weekend was terrible! It rained really hard Saturday morning, so much so that we move into the horse arena for the afternoon. Sunday the good news was that it had quite raining, the bad news was that it was snowing. We pushed through and I think everyone got a lot out of the two days with Don. He was really patient and helpful with a new handler who had his father-in-laws unruly golden and his other half's hard charging chocolate with many issues. He is going to do alright as both these dogs show him more respect then they do the other two.
I sent M back with Don for a couple of weeks as I just don't think that she is ready to jump into qualifying at the end of the month. He is going to work on the confidence issue with cold blinds. He saw how she really is showing some confusion when ask to run a cold blind off of marks. I am going to miss her but today all I have done is sleep. We worked hard. I have a whole bunch of notes and exercises to do when she comes home. At the end of the day Sunday we took a drive around the property and Don pointed out different running lines for marks and blinds and what concepts we could build into them. Those that missed him this time want him to come up again. Not sure my old body will take it. Perhaps in September if he can get away.