Wipeout Doubles, Steadiness, Land Blinds

Clevengers Corner

This morning, the dogs and I again trained with Dave and Carole, our holistic vet. I set up the marks, and Dave threw for Carole's dog and mine.

SERIES A. Land double with blind (Laddie, Lumi)

The first mark (WD) was thrown left to right on an angle back at 80 yards. The second mark (chukar flier) was also thrown left to right, from a throwing position almost inline with the throwing position for the first mark, at 30 yards. Both throws were made with live shotgun fire. After the dog picked up both marks, the dog ran a blind at 60 yards on a line 60° to the right of the line to the second mark.

For Series A, I ran Laddie, then Carole ran Lumi while I had Laddie honor, then Carole ran Dyna, her Bernese Mountain Dog, while I had Lumi honor.

Series A was intended to include the following challenges:

• The second throw was intended as a "wipe-out" mark for the first throw, making it difficult for the dog to remember the fall from the first throw.
• The second throw was closer to the SL than any Senior Hunt Test flier, creating a steadiness challenge for both the running dog and the honoring dog.
• The honoring dog was positioned to the right of the running dog, so that the running dog would run past the honoring dog when released to the flier.
• The line to the blind was across a downhill slope, so that the dog would tend to gravitate to the right.
  
• The line to the blind was thru a keyhole formed by a bale of hay and the edge of the woods at 50 yards out.
  

SERIES B. Land double with blind (Lumi, Laddie)

The marks for Series B were a mirror image of the marks for Series A. For Series B, the first mark (WD) was thrown right to left on an angle back at 80 yards. The second mark (chukar flier) was also thrown right to left, from a throwing position almost inline with the throwing position for the first mark, at 30 yards. Both throws were made with live shotgun fire. After the dog picked up both marks, the dog ran a blind at 130 yards on a line 15° to the right of the throwing positions for both marks.

For Series B, I ran Lumi, then Carole ran Laddie while I had Lumi honor, then Carole ran Dyna while I had Laddie honor. Since Laddie runs better for Carole than Lumi does, this turned out to be a better dog sequence than the one we used for Series A.

Series A was intended to include the following challenges:

• The second throw was intended as a "wipe-out" mark for the first throw, making it difficult for the dog to remember the fall from the first throw.
• The second throw was closer to the SL than any Senior Hunt Test flier, creating a steadiness challenge for both the running dog and the honoring dog.
• The honoring dog was positioned to the left of the running dog, so that the running dog would run past the honoring dog when released to the flier.
• The line to the blind was close to both thrower's positions, which including running past the crate of live birds.
• The line to the blind was thru a keyhole formed by two bales of hay at 110 yards.

Neither dog was able to run the Series B blind from the SL. When I moved up 30 yards, so that the new SL was near the second throwing position and the crate of birds, both dogs were able to run the blind well.

The Wipeout Double

As mentioned, my intent in Series A and B was to give the dogs experience with a picture in which a short mark was thrown and retrieved after a longer mark that was thrown in the same direction from a position in nearly the same line as the shorter mark. I'm not sure what such a double is called.

These would not be called "inline doubles". Inline doubles also involve marks in the same line but are thrown as convergent from either side of the lines to the mark, whereas my set-up had both birds thrown in the same direction.

Also, these would not be called hip pocket or reverse hip pocket doubles. Hip pocket and reverse hip pocket doubles also involve marks thrown the same direction from throwing positions on a tight angle, but I don't think today's doubles were the same picture as either hip pockets or reverse hip pockets. In a hip pocket double, the short bird is in line with the long thrower. In a reverse hip pocket double, the long bird is on a line just behind the short thrower. By contrast, in my set-up, neither bird was on a line toward either throwing position, but the long bird was on a line under the arc of the short bird.

Some time ago, Dave used the term "wipeout" mark to describe a mark that tended to cause the dog to forget an earlier one, so I called today's doubles "wipeout doubles" in the subject line of this post. I'm not sure if a traditional name exists for a set-up like this one.