Blinds, Poorman Marks

Riggs Road

SERIES A. Triple land blind (Lumi, then Laddie)

The first blind was to the right at 150 yards. The second blind was to the left at 210 yards. The third blind was in the middle at 240 yards. All blinds were ODs with LPs as marker. The terrain at our Riggs Road field is such that an LP is barely visible unless you're close to it. Markers are necessary here for most blind locations because the field is huge (60 acres) and virtually featureless. Even with the LPs in place, I need to memorize the configuration of the background, such as a tree top pattern, a shed, or an old tractor at the edge of the field another several hundred yards past the blind.

Neither dog lined any of the blinds, and we had plenty of WS and casting practice. With me setting minimum latency for "correct response", Lumi slipped a total of three whistles at the longer distances, in each case resulting in a walk out. Her performance improved after each WO and was excellent by the time we ran Series C.

Laddie slipped no whistles. His latency was usually excellent. On one WS, his latency was merely good, but for Laddie, that means he can cover quite a bit of ground. I didn't use a WO for that instance, but plan to tighten up criteria for Laddie as well as for Lumi going forward.

SERIES B. Land double (Lumi, then Laddie)

When I walked back out to get the LPs from Series A, I left both dogs at the SL and brought along two ducks with me for poorman marks. For each dog, I threw one duck at a longer distance left to right and a second duck at a shorter distance left to right. I then returned to the SL and sent the dog to the shorter bird, then the longer one.

For Lumi, the memory-bird was on the left at 150 yards, while the go-bird was on the right at 90 yards. Despite the featureless terrain, she nailed both marks.

For Laddie, the memory-bird was on the right at 240 yards, while the go-bird was on the left at 210 yards. Laddie was offline a little to the left on the go-bird, though he apparently had no difficulty spotting it as he got close. He nailed the memory-bird.

SERIES C. Land blind (Laddie, then Lumi)

Since the dogs prefer retrieving ducks to dummies, I thought we'd end the day with a single blind using a duck at as the retrieval article. The blind was at 270 yards, marked with an LP.