There was no group training this past Saturday, but it was a beautiful day so we got out to do some training on our own.  We were at our cabin where there are only a couple of open fields.  This is one that we use now and again.

As you can see it is long and narrow which limits what we can set-up.  It is great for cover and distance and has a few hills which is something our dogs never get in the local parks.  Aside from the shape the problem with this field is that once things start growing, we can’t use it for training because it is full of cheat grass and we worry about the dogs inhaling the seeds.  The other problem is that between May and August there are a lot of bugs which makes it unpleasant so we stay clear.

We decided to set up a wipe-out double with a blind.  Wipe-out marks are an area where we know that our dogs are weak.

This is a diagram of our set-up:

The dogs watch Mark #1 and then Mark #2 is thrown in line with it.  Mark #2 can wipe-out mark #1 in the dog’s mind.  The blind was run in as a hot blind in a tight area even with mark #2.  The challenge with this is that if the dog veered too far off line from the mark, it would run into that hot blind so it would be up to the handler to handle them off the blind if they got close to it.  Hopefully that would not be the case because as you see there is a road just before the blind and that can act as an invisible fence in a dog’s mind.  The challenge would be to get the dog over that road when it was time to run the blind.

We usually run Thunder as our test dog.  If we need to make adjustments to our set-up Thunder will show us.

We used our winger to throw mark #1 and I was hand throwing Mark #2.  By the time I set down the starter pistol and grabbed my camera, Thunder was already past me and retrieving mark #1.

Thunder ran this double out-of-order.  Most dogs will pick up the last mark they see fall (Mark #2 in this set-up) and not run over the closer bumper.  Not Thunder.  He ran right over the closer bumper to the farther bumper and I maintain it is because of all of his years of hunting experience.  He knows that it is always best to get something farther out before it escapes.  🙂

Now for the closer bumper (Mark #2).

All that was left for Thunder was to run the blind.

He had a few more handles before he actually got to the blind.  He kept missing the little cut-out where the blind was for some reason.  I had trouble getting pictures because as you can see it was full sun and the sun was not in a great spot for me to get photos.  I probably should have added my polarizing filter to my camera.  Next time.

Nice job for our old hunting dog who only trains now and again.  We felt our set-up was good so Storm and Freighter were up next.  Come back tomorrow to see how they did.