This past Saturday’s training was a long double in a cut wheat field.  We had a bit of a break in the weather because although it was a warm morning, it was not too hot and the humidity was low.  It was a good morning to stretch the dogs out.

The field had a downward slope to it.  The double was at the bottom of the slope.  The first bird thrown was the right hand bird and was thrown parallel to the road, but landed at the edge of some cover.  The second bird was the left hand bird and this bird landed on a rise in the wheat field.  These were long marks as you can see from this photo.  I have marked the double and the path the dogs took.

I have to admit that I was not really sure how Freighter would do on this.  It looked like an easy double, but it was past his comfort zone in distance and had some meat to it.  The right hand mark required the dogs to cross a road and as you can see from the diagram they had to cross the road at an angle.  This can be a difficult concept for some dogs.  The road acts like a barrier to them.  Similarly, the left hand bird fell on a rise in the field.  This can also cause issues because the dog must mark the fall and drive up that little rise rather than stop short before getting to the top of the rise.

Since it was the last mark he saw fall, Freighter retrieved the left hand mark first.  He had no problem with this mark and got it with no hunting.

You can see in the next picture how the field is sloped.

Time for Freighter to retrieve the right hand bird which was the first bird that he saw thrown.  We call this the memory bird because Freighter must remember where it fell after retrieving the left hand bird.  Hubby lined Freighter up and he was off.

Freighter had no problem crossing the road and as you can see, he is crossing it as a angle, but he was bit off line to where the bird fell so he had to hunt a bit to find it.

I was pretty happy with how Freighter did on this set-up.  We do not have access to large fields like this cut wheat field so we do not have the space to stretch him out like this very often.  Freighter has been doing some long singles this year, but not many long multiple marks.

The other thing I was happy about is Freighter’s condition.  Even after doing these long retrieves in bright sunshine on a warm morning, he was barely panting.