doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com How long do you actually hunt your dog

Interesting variety of practices, all valid for the hunters and dogs they are hunting. The variety proved my point to my buddy. It also showed me my hard running setter burning out in 3-4 hours is not out of the norm.

Hard-running dog vs. one of moderate pace makes a difference. I often run my springers with a buddy who hunts with a lab. The springers cover a lot more ground than the lab, who trots at a leisurely pace. In cool weather I'll switch dogs at about 3 hours, and they easily keep this up over several consecutive days.

My friend's lab has it figured out ... takes it easy on the edges of draws, watches my dogs work the deep cattail patches, then beats them to retrieve pheasants they dig out of the cover.

Jay

In the warmer weather we keep a very close eye on the GSP's, because they do not know how to slow down!
Lots of water and short jaunts.....
DT

Here is one trainer's take on it:

Can your dog hunt all day?

I agree with a lot of what he says. However, a well conditioned pointing dog should be able to hunt for well over an hour in normal conditions. My trial dog goes balls out for an hour when run off horseback. She averages 10-15MPH on the GPS in that time, and typically still has a fair amount of gas in the tank. However, when I get off the horse and hunt her off foot she cuts that speed in half and will easily hunt 3-4 hours in normal conditions. She will cover 15-25 miles in a 3-4 hour hunt. Dogs should know how to pace themselves at decent hunting speed, and if the dog is hunting at a speed I feel is decent, they won't make it all day. For comparison sake with the article, I road my dog at 10-12 MPH for 7 miles 2-3 times per week off my bike. The trainer does the same speed, but he roads for roughly 10 miles. My dog is in very, very good shape and I can get a good honest half day out of her.

When I had two dogs we hunted all day in various temps, but we also hunted three to four days a week so the dogs were really conditioned. They were a GWP and Lab. Now I have four dogs, 2 GWP's, lab, and an EP. I rotate now due to my two older dogs are getting up in age and can only hunt for a couple hours.