How do you guys condition your hunting dogs in the off season? I have been using a tennis racket with 100/175 yd sprints.

I never used this method for conditioning more of a way to burn a little of the highness in out field dogs before a hunt test or trial.

We train year round so they are always conditioned, but a great topic due to hunting season coming up theya re athletes as well.

David

I understand that here at the primo's site there are quite a few people with pro field dogs and breeds. What I have is a golden retriever house dog that doubles as my hunting partner. It seems last year as I was talking to people & I heard a few stories of guys running their dogs to death in the warmer part of September; Then, I overheard a conversation with a guy in the park next to my house, he let his dogs out of his truck ran them for 3 minutes and then put them in the truck to "condition them for the season." That gave me the idea for the thread.

Doing this can run a dog to death as well - anything for a long period of time can harm an animal - some dogs are more prone to others to overheat - dogs that get real high already have a high core temperature at that point - in the heat we like to train early or late - beat the heat, even the water temps this time of year can be like bath water - I would rather do short marks and swims and concentrate on the basics through transition - to keep a dog maintained to answer the question only really needs to be three times a week for most dogs that are just hunters - then you have the dog that needs to be conditioned on the drill work daily.

David

What I do for my labs is I take them to the park near our house and run their drills. We usually work for around 20-30 mins or so in the evening after I get home from work and I also take some water in a bottle for them to drink. My wife also runs with one of them 4 or so times a week. I just started to compete with Colt (yellow lab male) this past spring. We didn't do as well as I had hoped, but he is still pretty young and it was his first time to compete.

My dad used to have a lab, he hunted ducks, ring necks or other types of upland birds. From what he has told me, smoke < dogs name,) just always hung out with him, in the yard, give them time to just run around and be with his ole master. And when the cooler tempertures come around then he won't be so far behind in his conditioning.