Land Triple

Rolling Ridge

I had originally planned to run a land triple and a water triple with both dogs today at Hunt Test distances, just for the fun of it. But the gnats were so bad during the land triple that I just decided to throw some bumpers in the pond for them afterwards and then call it a day.

Temps were in the high 80s. The fields at Rolling Ridge have not been mowed in several weeks, so all the cover is at least waist high. For the triple, all three throws were made with our two BBs.

SERIES A. Interrupted triple with blind (Lumi, then Laddie)

The first throw was on the left, right to left at 100 yards. The BB was behind a fallen tree, and the throw was into a large area of shoulder-high cover the edge of which ran roughly parallel to the line to the fall, creating a uniform wall of cover difficult to see differences in along its length. The throw was made after I cued "Sit, mark," but without any other information until the gunshot went off and launched the bumper across the somewhat lower cover and into the higher stuff.

The second throw was in the middle, right to left at 60 yards, again from an area of somewhat lower cover into an area of shoulder-high cover. I sounded the BB's duck call before firing this mark. The line to the mark was thru the corner of an area of higher cover, which the dog could skirt by veering slightly to the right. I allowed Lumi to do so, whereas I called Laddie back when he tried to and had him go thru the triangle of high cover.

The third throw was on the right, thrown left to right at 20 yards and behind a large tree. The dog had to run well around to the left to get to the fall.

After all the dog had watched all three throws, I sent the dog to pick up the 20-yard mark on the right. Next, I had the dog run an 80-yard blind under the arc of the mark the dog had just picked up. Then I had the dog pick up the 60-yard middle mark. And finally, we turned in the direction of the 100-yard mark, which was 120° to the left of the middle mark, and I sent the dog to pick up the last mark, which had been the first mark down.

I had done everything I could think of to make the last mark difficult for the dog to remember. However, both dogs seemed to have a clear memory of it when I sent them to it, running out to the area of the fall at full speed. At that stage, both dogs had a moderate-length hunt, trying to find the correct place to enter the high cover and then trying to find the bumper inside. However, both dogs had the necessary persistence and eventually emerged from the high cover with the bumper without any attempt to interact with me.