How do GSP's handle retirement?

[GSP 4 me]

Are retired hunting GSP's like many retired professional boxers that just can't leave the sport? I'm still amazed at the natural bird instincts and prey drive my young dog shows, so I can only imagine what GSP's with well documented sporting histories must be like.

Do older GSP's come to the realization at some point that their bodies just can't keep up with the physical demands of bird hunting and are willing to sit on the sidelines?

[Wagonmaster]

No. They are hard wired to hunt. They will still do it when they are deaf, half blind, and can hardly walk. They would rather do that than anything else in the world, and if taken away from them, well, there is nothing left.

[rkelly]

Well put John. My last GSP had arthritis so bad at about age 13 that she would be practically dragging her back legs after an hour or so of hunting, but still looked as though she was loving every minute of it. Unfortunately it was too much for me to watch so I had to retire her. On the last field of her life she pointed a rooster...I shot it..I then put her up knowing it was the last of her life.

[Wagonmaster]

I think many of us have had to put a dog up, knowing that was the last one. Time should stop just for a little while so you and the dog could be trapped somewhere where the dog could hunt longer. Forever would be good. That is not how life works though.

[bobman]

I'll probably get slammed for this but when one of my old dogs get too old to really hunt I road hunt as I'm driving from spot to spot to hunt my younger dogs in my string,,

eventually a rooster screws up and runs across the road into the ditch those are the birds my old dogs get, the whole hunt may only require a 100 yard walk but they seem to still get fired up when they get that snootful of scent and I tell them how proud I am of them

I figure if I ever get caught its worth the ticket to me to make them happy and give them a easy bird.


ANd no I never road hunt at any other time and dont like the practice (with this exception)

[megschristina]

I know when I as a kid, my dad had Brandy, a pretty little setter. Brandy (RIP) got old and at 14 my dad stopped taking her, but when he would suit up, and get his things together and walk out that door, that dog would cry like there was no tomorrow, just pacing back and forth, practically howling. she was to the point where she may have been seizing, (looking back I believe that is what it was) and she still wanted to go hunt more than any thing in the world. Not a GSP story, but a gun dog story.

[larue]

No they do not want to retire just ask my max dog.

[ACooper]

I never saw any point in retiring a dog unless it just could not physically hunt any more, we had a 13 y/o pointer that died when I was 21, I killed birds over her the last day of season, she died a month later. My uncle had a great little Brit name JJ, I ran her in a fun hunt to support our local QU club when she was 15, she had 4 finds and 4 retrieves, the only problem was she was almost totally deaf and headed out of the field at one point, to not get DQ'd I ran her down (not real hard at that age) and carried her back into the field pointed her in the right direction and off she went. She made it for a few hunts the next fall, but as with all of them old age gets them at some point.

Not gsps but what's the difference?

[Two Bears]

My retired GSP can hardly get up out of her bed (will lay there for most of the day) and can only walk on 3 legs, has more tumors than I can count, she is very short on eye sight ...BUT if a rooster ran in front of her she would take after that cock faster than you can say "hey theres a......." and would not give up till she had it or it would fly. Then she would have to lay down on her bed and rest for a day or two.
She is old and wore out but she still loves the birds!

[Ruffshooter]

Where I train is private land that I have permission to use: the owner come in on vacations and weekends etc with there now 16 year old GSP. They go for three mile walks with her and she is never on the trail always hunting, albeit slower, but none the less, the GSP will make her way into the field so I drop birds for her and her tail gets happy and pace picks up a little and she will find and handle the birds each time. I shoot them and she brings the bird back to Roger and back to camp they go. That old GSP has a little more spring in her step. She is big one too. Maybe 65 or more pounds not fat.

Ben My Mercy's father, grouse hunted, and haunted as hard as some younger dogs, his last season at 14 years old then passed the following summer from some cancer.

They are brought up on hunting or trialing or both, and it just is part of their fabric, like many of us.

[PrairieGoat]

I think many of us have had to put a dog up, knowing that was the last one. Time should stop just for a little while so you and the dog could be trapped somewhere where the dog could hunt longer. Forever would be good.

Amen....