Off season training

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Kovan
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Off season training

Post by Kovan » Thu Dec 27, 2018 7:08 pm

This might be a dumb question but do you guys train your dogs all year long?

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Sharon
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Re: Off season training

Post by Sharon » Thu Dec 27, 2018 7:53 pm

I do. I want her to stay in shape ( and me :) ) I use auctioned off $2 pigeons for fun and training purposes.
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deseeker
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Re: Off season training

Post by deseeker » Thu Dec 27, 2018 8:01 pm

Yes-- After hunting season is over I start running them in hunt tests in early Spring. I then train on pigeons during the Summer and in early Fall I'll do hunting tests with them. When hunting season rolls around in mid Fall, they are in shape and ready to hunt. Only problem with that is I'm not getting any younger and my knees slow me down every year, so the dogs are in a lot better shape than I am when season starts :!: :!: :oops: :D

Meskousing
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Re: Off season training

Post by Meskousing » Thu Dec 27, 2018 10:36 pm

Absolutely! My dog needs a lot of exercise and mental stimulation. Some training is going back to basics- heel, sit, here, place. Some is retrieving based (he's an AWS)- blinds, casting, EASY marks. I live in northern WI and snow cover is an issue, so a fair amount of his retrieving is on a plowed road (I live on a dead end road.) It's not intended to make him a great retriever, but it gets him to open up his jets and some mental stimulation. I don't view the training as making a lot of progress, but more to prevent regress. Also, we'll do some drills (Y drill, wagon wheel) in plowed parking lots. Church lots are great because they're plowed, seldom occupied, and well lit at night.

I have definitely found that if he doesn't get exercise AND mental stimulation, he uses that energy in sub-productive outlets.

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Re: Off season training

Post by averageguy » Fri Dec 28, 2018 7:53 am

I train in the off season (Spring/Summer) and mostly hunt during the hunting seasons. There are always opportunities to re-enforce already trained subjects while hunting, around the house, motel, but I do not undertake the more protracted training subjects until the off seasons e.g. steadiness to WSF, blind retrieve handling, whatever form of FF I am using on the dog. If I am training for a hunt test I enroll in a test in August so that our summer training rolls right into the Hunt test and we are free to hunt starting with September 1st Doves through the Snow Geese in March.

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gundogguy
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Re: Off season training

Post by gundogguy » Fri Dec 28, 2018 7:56 am

Heck yay! All sorts of exercises and drills can be run. Temps on this January day in Michigan 18-20f snow depths in the field 20 inches on the level with 3 ft drifts

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Re: Off season training

Post by Steve007 » Fri Dec 28, 2018 9:34 am

Meskousing wrote:Absolutely! My dog needs a lot of exercise and mental stimulation. Some training is going back to basics- heel, sit, here, place. Some is retrieving based (he's an AWS)- blinds, casting, EASY marks. I live in northern WI and snow cover is an issue, so a fair amount of his retrieving is on a plowed road (I live on a dead end road.) It's not intended to make him a great retriever, but it gets him to open up his jets and some mental stimulation. I don't view the training as making a lot of progress, but more to prevent regress. Also, we'll do some drills (Y drill, wagon wheel) in plowed parking lots. Church lots are great because they're plowed, seldom occupied, and well lit at night.

I have definitely found that if he doesn't get exercise AND mental stimulation, he uses that energy in sub-productive outlets.
Good breed! You should start a thread on him..or his breed, anyway. With pictures. I researched them heavily, saw some and was all set to get one quite a few years ago..until I got led astray by a very fine Gordon Setter. An AWS is an under-appreciated breed.

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Re: Off season training

Post by birddogger2 » Fri Dec 28, 2018 3:26 pm

Kovan wrote:This might be a dumb question but do you guys train your dogs all year long?
What I do and which dogs I do it with varies with the age of the dog, where it is in its training and what my goals are for that dog.

I wouldn't say "train' all year long, but I do try to keep the dogs active and in some semblance of physical shape. I try not to let the dogs, especially the older ones, get too far out of condition, because... the farther they are out of shape, the harder it will be for them to get that conditioning back and that is when the sprains, strains and worse... happens.

In August I start serious conditioning and bird work because my first trials are on Labor Day. The trial season thins out for me after Thanksgiving and is fairly quiet until February, so I hunt the dogs some and kinda take it easy on them until mid- January when I ratchet it up again. Since the weather is much colder, it does not take the same amount of conditioning to get the dog to run a quality hour in front of a horse that it took in August and September.

If it is a youngster, I will do what needs to be done...when it needs to be done, to bring the dog along, but the older, more seasoned dogs don't need or get bird work more than a couple times a week typically. Most of the rest is free running and slow roading to build muscle and stamina.

RayG

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Re: Off season training

Post by cjhills » Fri Dec 28, 2018 4:43 pm

I mostly give myself and the dogs January and February off. A bit of obedience practice and a couple runs every day is plenty to keep them in shape and prevent weight gain. I think they need some off time to relax both mentally and physically. Also restore injured muscles.
We got a foot of snow last night and about 12 below F tonight. It don't take much to burn off the holiday calories in that weather. The dogs love it......Cj

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Kovan
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Re: Off season training

Post by Kovan » Sun Dec 30, 2018 11:14 pm

Thanks for the tips guys! I appreciate it, I will surely put in work and keep my buddy in shape and ready for next season. He is still a young dog(9 months) and he is slightly on the stubborn side i am trying to be patient as i can. I live in the southern of Wisconsin, snow hasnt been bad here yet but snow or no snow i really dont mind. Its just that i wasnt sure if i should keep up with his training all year long because he is still a pup.

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Re: Off season training

Post by Trekmoor » Mon Dec 31, 2018 5:52 am

My health no longer allows me to train dogs at all but when I was still able to I did train my dogs right through the year. When the shooting season ended at the beginning of February I'd do some woodpigeon shooting and I also took my dogs, the pointing dogs in particular, onto the estates I worked them on during the shooting months in order to sharpen up their hunting , pointing and steadiness using the estates pheasants that had avoided being shot during the winter.

Some of those birds had probably been found and flushed by the beaters dogs at least half a dozen times and they were often difficult birds for a dog to pin down with a point. If the dog was incautious or impatient then the birds flew off long before I could get to the point. It was good training and I could do this until April when birds began to think about nesting.

March and the beginning of April also saw me up on the grouse moors doing "pairs counts" on the grouse for the estates gamekeepers.

From mid April to about the middle of July I'd be training my labs or spaniels for tests and also just taking them for training walks ….my favourite way of training dogs was to take them for a walk of a few miles and let them run free while I blew recall from time to time and then gave them a retrieve. I try to train all my dogs to be retrieve fanatics and so, if they were running free through a wood or a marsh and heard the recall whistle they would at once think …" RETRIEVE !" and get back to me as quickly as they could for the reward of the retrieve.

From about mid July to the middle of August I'd be back up on the grouse moors again counting the grouse . This time the grouse would have chicks in various stages of growth and if the moor was to have the same number of grouse on it at the end of the day's count as it had at the beginning of the day then my dogs had to be very steady and never go in for a peg ! Gamekeepers and landowners get a bit peeved if a dog pegs a grouse ! :lol:

Then the Glorious 12 th would arrive and my dogs would be required to find, point, flush and retrieve the grouse for the small parties of clients I was asked to guide and work my dogs for and again I'd have been in trouble if my dogs had bumped more than a couple of times or had pegged any of the birds. That was my favourite sort of dog work, I loved working pointing dogs on grouse , it is, I.M.O. ,the crème de la crème of all forms of gundog work. I got paid for doing this but although I never told the estate owners this …. I'd have done it for nothing ! :lol:

I also took my labs, spaniels and hunt - point - retrievers to the big driven grouse shoots to find and retrieve the shot birds. Sometimes hundreds of grouse would be shot in just one day and the dogs would become exhausted trying to find and retrieve them from among many acres of heather.

Then in September the partridge season would start and I'd divide my time between them and the grouse as well as I could . Then in October the pheasant season started and I worked my dogs on them too dividing my time between hunting and pointing them for paying guns and "picking-up" on the big driven shoots. In addition to this I'd be trialing my dogs and maintaining their trialing standards .


I also went trout fishing, barbel fishing, carp fishing , pike fishing and sea fishing whenever I got a chance to ! I had a hectic old life ! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Bill T.
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CDN_Cocker
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Re: Off season training

Post by CDN_Cocker » Mon Dec 31, 2018 7:34 am

Yep. Pretty hard to expect a dog to perform well if it hasn't worked all year. It would be like going for a walk around the block once or twice and then signing yourself up for a marathon.
Cass
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Kovan
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Re: Off season training

Post by Kovan » Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:22 am

Trekmoor wrote:My health no longer allows me to train dogs at all but when I was still able to I did train my dogs right through the year. When the shooting season ended at the beginning of February I'd do some woodpigeon shooting and I also took my dogs, the pointing dogs in particular, onto the estates I worked them on during the shooting months in order to sharpen up their hunting , pointing and steadiness using the estates pheasants that had avoided being shot during the winter.

Some of those birds had probably been found and flushed by the beaters dogs at least half a dozen times and they were often difficult birds for a dog to pin down with a point. If the dog was incautious or impatient then the birds flew off long before I could get to the point. It was good training and I could do this until April when birds began to think about nesting.

March and the beginning of April also saw me up on the grouse moors doing "pairs counts" on the grouse for the estates gamekeepers.

From mid April to about the middle of July I'd be training my labs or spaniels for tests and also just taking them for training walks ….my favourite way of training dogs was to take them for a walk of a few miles and let them run free while I blew recall from time to time and then gave them a retrieve. I try to train all my dogs to be retrieve fanatics and so, if they were running free through a wood or a marsh and heard the recall whistle they would at once think …" RETRIEVE !" and get back to me as quickly as they could for the reward of the retrieve.

From about mid July to the middle of August I'd be back up on the grouse moors again counting the grouse . This time the grouse would have chicks in various stages of growth and if the moor was to have the same number of grouse on it at the end of the day's count as it had at the beginning of the day then my dogs had to be very steady and never go in for a peg ! Gamekeepers and landowners get a bit peeved if a dog pegs a grouse ! :lol:

Then the Glorious 12 th would arrive and my dogs would be required to find, point, flush and retrieve the grouse for the small parties of clients I was asked to guide and work my dogs for and again I'd have been in trouble if my dogs had bumped more than a couple of times or had pegged any of the birds. That was my favourite sort of dog work, I loved working pointing dogs on grouse , it is, I.M.O. ,the crème de la crème of all forms of gundog work. I got paid for doing this but although I never told the estate owners this …. I'd have done it for nothing ! :lol:

I also took my labs, spaniels and hunt - point - retrievers to the big driven grouse shoots to find and retrieve the shot birds. Sometimes hundreds of grouse would be shot in just one day and the dogs would become exhausted trying to find and retrieve them from among many acres of heather.

Then in September the partridge season would start and I'd divide my time between them and the grouse as well as I could . Then in October the pheasant season started and I worked my dogs on them too dividing my time between hunting and pointing them for paying guns and "picking-up" on the big driven shoots. In addition to this I'd be trialing my dogs and maintaining their trialing standards .


I also went trout fishing, barbel fishing, carp fishing , pike fishing and sea fishing whenever I got a chance to ! I had a hectic old life ! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Bill T.

WOW....that's a lot of training and work, and I am 32 years old lol. Its just kind of hard because I don't have the place for that kind of training. I am planning to do some trail walking and field work as soon as deer season is done, I dont want to disturb any of the deer hunting fellows. Did you train your dogs everyday? or did you give some break times during the week?

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Re: Off season training

Post by polmaise » Mon Dec 31, 2018 1:26 pm

Kovan wrote: Did you train your dogs everyday? or did you give some break times during the week?
More a lifestyle than a hobby or work .
Bill left out opportunities to Train or be active in Deer Tracking during the Summer months on Bucks . ..and a few days in September on wildfowling on Geese and Ducks ..all the way through to mid February ..on Fore shore -Tidal waters ...Ferreting bolting rabbits in june /July is a great sport with all dogs and sharp guns ..and of Course having the odd competition with comrades or friends in working tests and Game fairs ..keeps the dogs in shape . 24/7 .365
By August of each year they should all be hitting the ground running and ready .
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Re: Off season training

Post by Trekmoor » Mon Dec 31, 2018 3:38 pm

My dogs did get a few mid -week breaks , usually because it had rained heavily all day and I worked doing a mainly outdoor job all morning and by afternoon and evening I was fed up being soaking wet !

As Robert said there were other opportunities for dog work too , I did mainly goose shooting over decoys and the farm I had permission to shoot them on was like a magnet for hundreds of pinkfoot and sometimes greylag geese. Oddly enough I rarely ever saw a duck of any kind fly over that farm and not even once did a see a duck feeding there.

America is a far, far bigger country than Britain but I sometimes think we have more opportunities to work our dogs regularly than most of you folk do. The lairds and the lords etc. have a great deal of the available land but if they want to shoot quantities of game over it then they cannot do it without the help and the dogs of us lowly commoners ! :lol:

Bill T.
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Re: Off season training

Post by polmaise » Mon Dec 31, 2018 4:27 pm

If You only have one dog ,then it requires management on what you do with that one dog .
When You have multiple dogs ,it is physically harder on the human than it is on the Individual dog ...and rightly so .

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