September Water Double

This is a setup involving a cheating entry down-the-shore mark as the go bird (the thrower is located at the edge of the pines on the corner of the field), and a 337 yard memory bird. The wind is blowing at 25 mph (very strong) down the pond at a slight angle toward the long gunners.

Both marks are thrown right to left.

The concept here is to establish strong suction to the land by running a mark where the dogs will exit very early and run close to half way to the long gunners before recovering the mark. The long bird becomes a very difficult bird to recover properly without a proper foundation of down the shore marks.

In this setup I actually had more difficulty with the dogs taking the proper line to the short bird rather than the long bird. Each dog seemed to prefer the safety of the water over exiting near the cat tails. This in itself presents a problem since the dogs become blocked by the cat tails and lose sight of the intended fall area. When able to emerge the long guns are clearly in view and the short gunner is behind them...decision time.

In terms of running standards I held the dogs to a very straight line on the short bird upon entry. I allowed a wider berth on the longer mark but not a total bail out...I want the initial lines challenged and held. I helped the dogs on the short bird after I determined that they were bailing out to the water side by making them take the exit near or in the cat tails. I held the standard on the long mark of anything left of the gunners for the entire route. I had one correction near the gunners as the dog tried to beach immediately after the last cat tail clump.

I use indirect pressure (toot-nick (low setting)-toot) to correct lines. I use indirect pressure with a higher level and constant for line avoidance. I recall and resend if the initial line is not challenged at all (dog bails to the watery side or blatantly cheats).

This is a good tune up set of marks and great excercise as well.

After running this setup I actually relocated and ran another set of marks from where the long gunners are with a short bird on the near point (with the oak tree) and the long bird all the way in the left hand corner of the pond in the photo. These set of marks were extremely demanding since the path was directly in a cross wind blowing in to the point and far bank.

7 hours to run these two setups...non stop dog after dog!

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