Advice please

[srmgundog]

My Brittany is now two years old and she was been trained by a top notch trainer last year and she had a decent first year on birds this past Fall. My question is...what should I be doing with her now to keep her in form? I don't mean physical conditioning...I mean on birds...pointing etc. The trainer said she will just go back to it naturally when she gets back in the woods but I seem to read that there's more involved than that. Any advice would be appreciated. I'm new at this whole thing. Also any book/dvd on that subject I'd be willing to pick up too. I have lots of books on training them to begin with but I'm not reading much about what to do after the initial training. Thanks very much in advance.

[High Voltage]

Look into the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association NAVHDA for short. Here's the link to the chapter locator http://www.navhda.org/membership-chapte ... nd-members
Most chapters meet 1-2 times a month to train during the "off" season. You meet some great people who help you to train your dog. They usually have a supply of birds you can buy and other training equipment to use. Even with our dogs being older, 11 & 8, this helps keep them tuned up and gives them something to do in the spring/summer.

[DonF]

Your dog will likely go back to it without any off season work. There are a lot of hunter's around this country that never have worked their dog off season and they still get bird's over their dog's. At worst you might get a bust or two but it will come back to the dog soon. Working the dog off season on bird's, game farm or pigeon's will keep the dog sharp and in better shape than the dog's that do do nothing in the off season. You need to decide for yourself how sharp you want to keep your dog! Off season training, actually work, is fun.

[shags]

Give that trainer a call and schedule a brush-up session just before your season begins. You and he can put the dog on a couple or three birds, you can see where she is training-wise, and get any kinks worked out ( or he can tell you what you need to do in case your pup has more than a kink or two )

[Dakotazeb]

She will go back to it in the fall. No problem. However, getting her on some birds in the off season certainly will not hurt. As someone suggested, maybe an occasional visit to a game farm or getting involved with a local NAVHDA group. Myself, I have been running my Brittany in NSTRA field trials in the off season. NSTRA is probably more like actual hunting than any of the field trials. It's fun and gives you a chance to get out with your dog and among other dog owners. There is a NSTRA region in Michigan. Here's a link to their web site.
http://www.michigannstra.com/ And here is the link to NSTRA's national site: http://www.nstra.org/

[srmgundog]

You guys are the best! Thank you so much. Finally have a direction.

[Dakotazeb]

Sorry I mis-read your location. NSTRA doesn't have much of a presence in the northeast.

[mnaj_springer]

I train year round. Ok, maybe I take a break in January and early February, but I like training, and I like keeping my dogs on their game. And the side benefit is since they like work and they like training, they are better behaved afterwards. At some point I back off, maybe around age 4 or 5, depending on the dog and how far they are in training. But under that, there are still things to work on.

I also play the hunt test game, so I want get my money's worth when they run.