Trial Fitness

[Springfield Pointers]

My point, although badly made - and the reason I put hunting in inverted comma's, was that getting your dog working and enthused about doing what it does is what perpetuates focus and enables you to get through to your dog on a level that it appreciates and understands. You become the gateway to its performance and effort. IE - it begins to work for you.

[Jenny Talia]

Yes, if you can enthuse it enough that its going to find on a regular basis, therefore needing the "haloed" gamey ground, if you can get it which most newcomers may struggle to find.

[Springfield Pointers]

Yes, if you can enthuse it enough that its going to find on a regular basis, therefore needing the "haloed" gamey ground, if you can get it which most newcomers may struggle to find.

Like it or not. The reality is that these are bird dogs - it's what they are bred for. Fact remains, hunting gets their attention and if you, as a trainer, are able to control that, you will find it easier to get a dog to work as a partner.

[jeffD]

I used to work my spaniels hard 3 or 4 long days a week mostly on rabbits, my dogs never paced themselves, over the course of the day they would slow up due to being knackered but fast enough for any trial judge for the first hour and slow enough that I could keep up with them by mid day.

[Cass]

I used to work my spaniels hard 3 or 4 long days a week mostly on rabbits, my dogs never paced themselves, over the course of the day they would slow up due to being knackered but fast enough for any trial judge for the first hour and slow enough that I could keep up with them by mid day.

Yep exactly. This was my point. My guy may slow slightly by the 2 or 3 hour mark, but that does not affect him when he's competing or at a training day. 10-15 mins is nothing, so being used to hunting longer only does positive things for him.

[Naj]

I agree entirely, & not sure that many people who come up with the 'pacing themselves' argument have actually hunted young dogs regularly for 2 - 3 hours non-stop. It's pretty much the rule now that people only work their dogs for 20 - 30 minute spells. And how many lowland drives are much longer than that? In the UK relatively few people have access to shooting their own shooting, let alone have enough ground to regularly work a dog for this length of time. I think a bigger disincentive is that the longer you shoot over a dog the more game & gun wise it becomes & the more lax the handler may become & this can lead to Spanish customs and unwanted initiative slipping in. So shorter, intense 'shooting lessons' maintain that trial sharpness. The other thing is that many trail enthusiasts are over-dogged & have to share their valuable shooting opportunities between several dogs.

Naj

[jeffD]

My turn to agree with you Naj, by the time my dogs were 2 or 3 years old they pretty much did their own thing, they knew what the job was and loved doing it, I think most days I only blew my whistle for the odd recall, they all worked within gun range as they knew that a retrieve was more likely, they had long learnt that they knew where game was and not to take any notice of me as my nose was pretty useless.
All this was great for bagging game for a rough shooter and wildfowler, but my dogs and I would have been laughed off a trial.

[Naj]

Sounds like you had great times with them, Jeff.

[Dawnrazor]

Naj hits the nail.