Gun Dog Forum

What do you guys plan to do in your off season?

What is your focus on training?

How much and how often will you work your dogs on birds? How much yard work?

Roading? How do you road yours and how often? How long is your roading excercise each time?

What about you? What do you do to get yourself ready for next season?

Any new purchases for next season?

For me, my older dogs have gotten a little loose over the the trial season. I plan to do spend planty of time with them (3 days a week) working them on birds in controlled situations and get them back to the way that I want to see them.

My big focus is on my 2 young dogs I got from Arlette. They are both great prospects and I plan on really focusing on yard work daily( when I am not on the road for work), and getting them on birds a couple of times a week. Will probably force fetch the older of the 2 this summer. She is right at a year old.
The younger one will just have a lot of obedience and bird exposure. We shot her first bird over her last week. She seemed to think that was REALLY cool. This all gets to be much easier now that my 2 sons are old enough and inviolved enough to help with all of the training. They are 17 and 21. Both love the dogs and hunting and trialing. Makes some great family time.

I will road the 2 older dogs off of a bike, some by me, but mostly my 17 year old. Bodies like mine don't get found on bikes much!

For me, it will be lots of walking. Then after a month or so, I plan to get involved with a fitness trainer. I gotta get this weight off. I was miserable walking in the gfields this year. I was very athletic as a young adult, but that all went to heck with age! That comes to an end right now! I also plan on getting me and the boys out to our farm and shooting some clays once a week or so.

How about you?

I plan on working on my EP on steady at flush. She had a lot bird work during hunting season this year. She is 15 months now and I think she is ready. I will also be working on her retrieve she dose pretty good but like to take the victory lap and comes in behind me. Out side of that we will be just keeping it fun

We're in the 'breaking' process right now but I've kinda backed off because it seems like she's getting bored with the pigeons and pen-raised birds. I'm taking it really slow, mostly because I'm learning too and don't want to make a mess of things. I still do little brush-ups on yard work a couple times a week just to keep us both honest. I also signed up for a couple more trials this spring. Other than that, lots of conditioning right now that consists of running (not roading but off-leash) in an area that has some wild quail for about an hour every day. In July she'll be heading out to work with a trainer on wild birds for a couple of months (will be roading there every other day). We'll see where she's at after that but I'm really looking forward to a fun season this fall!

As far as myself, I plan on shooting lots of clays this summer and ramping up my own conditioning program for chukar season. I injured my ankle and had to have surgery and have really packed on the lbs. over the past year but I'm supposed to be able to return to regular exercise in June. I'm a runner so I'll just start gradually adding miles and doing a little weight training. It really doesn't matter what I do, with the folks I hunt with I will suffer the first few times out anyway .

Sounds like you have a very well thought out plan. I'm sure it'll work out great for you. Best of luck with the youngsters!

I get to start some puppies...

I've got my almost 2yo GWP steady to flush so I'm thinking I'll start working towards steady to shot this summer. I'll also be running him on rollerblades, getting him back in shape after a long winter. My personal goals are going to be exercising at least 4 - 5 times a week and shooting at least 10 rounds of trap/skeet before the fall. What's the point of having a dog if I can't even hit the birds

Down here "The Field Season" ended last month because the weather is becoming far too hot to do anything, unless you are out VERY early or VERY late.

So while we will still get in the odd bit of field work or a "Fun/Training Day", we are turning our focus to indoor activities like Obedience.

Right now we are working with Cheeney at the Open (CD) level and with Zio aUtility (UD).

I have completely bitten by the field trial bug, so its trialing and training until juneish...then training a few days a week through the summer. I have a britt that i am working getting finished, so the goal is to have 90% finished by the fall trials....My drahthaar i am working on getting steadied up and working on water work, i want to run her in NAVDHA UT next year.....
Conditioning the horse also...
Sporting Clays...
Golf...

Working on steady to shot and fall with a bitch. She is breaking on the shot. Even wild flush if I fire a blank she's gone no shot she'll hold.
Bringing up my new pup. Been doing obedience and bird work with him. All coming together really nice. Then some more water work on top of field for navhda. He's showing lots of potential.
Keeping them my oldest male and middle male in shape. Cash the middle male in shape for testing and of course hunting season. And chance the oldest for another hunting season I hope ,he's getting up there in his age,.

I try and put birds over them atleast three days a week. Yard work is done every day.

Do my skeet shooting to stay in shape for the season. All that bending over to load the trap will keep the stomach down,and the shooting will make sure the dogs get their rewards. Best of both worlds.

I am going to work the dogs on bird a time or two a week. Guess I am going to have to decide how much I want to run Indy in trials in the future.


Will also spend a fair amount of time on habitat on my new place. Got to turn 3-4 coveys into 7-9 on the place.