Freighter’s first hunt test of the season is fast approaching.  We have been trying to work on some things he struggled with last year.  One concept he saw and struggled with a couple of times last year were in line marks.  In line marks are where the bumpers are thrown so that they land in a line with one another.  When bumpers fall in a line, one bumper may wipe out the dog’s memory of the other.

We found a couple of fields near our cabin where we can train.  They are long and narrow which is not great for large set-ups, but great for working on concepts.  We moved farther down one field and found an area where there was a kind of valley between 2 hills…perfect for in line marks.

We set up an in line double with a blind.  The starting line was up on a hill with one mark falling down in the valley area and the other on the up-slope.  The blind was up on the top of the hill at the other side of the valley.

The marks were launched as numbered and Freighter picked them up in reverse order.  We were anxious to see how Freighter would handle this set-up.  He has never trained in this field so it would be something new for him.

Freighter flew down the hill to the mark #2 which was the closer mark.

He pinned the mark.

Now if all went well, Freighter would follow the same path that he took to the closer bumper which he all ready retrieved, and push past it to retrieve the farther bumper.

He pinned the farther mark too.

The marks complete, it was time to run Freighter on the blind which was at the top of a hill on the other side of the field.  The difficulty with this blind was pushing Freighter up the hill.

Freighter got a little off line so hubby stopped him with a whistle.

Hubby cast him and Freighter is off again.

This was a challenging blind for Freighter.  Hubby had to stop him and recast him several times.

Finally Freighter got the blind which I have marked in the next photo.

Freighter did a good job on this set-up, but he needs more and set-ups with multiple marks.  Hopefully we will get these in along with some water work this weekend.  Tests early in the season are tough.  So much to train-so little time.