Pleasure running during the off season

wildcat3

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
I guess this is more for the guys with deer dogs. Do yall run the pens much in the off season or hit any field trails ? I use to run the field trail circuit hard. My dogs didn't miss a week no matter what. If I couldn't take them I'd send the with my hunting partner or make some type of arrangements to get them ran. At one point, back then I had some really nice dogs. I had a bloodline that was working for me and was raising about a liter or two a year, getting a couple of nice young dogs out of each liter it seemed like. I really enjoyed field trailing my dogs and made some great friends doing it but it turned into a job! Running dogs every single week whether I wanted to or not to keep them in top shape, always raising and training pups to ensure I had young dogs coming on. These days I've scaled back big time. I've got 9 head. One of them is 10 years old and retired, two are 4 months. I don't care a thing about running them every single week anymore. I'll go when it cools down or I'll take them on a Friday night. Always liked to run at night but didn't get to much field trailing because I was always watching the dogs in the daytime. I don't know what it is but dogs just sound better at night. I might even run a few on the outside this fall when deer season comes in. I don't know what it is about hounds. I just like having them. I enjoy looking out the window in the mornings and seeing them. I like to pull out to the barn in the evenings and hear them start barking. They might not be high powered like the ones I had before but I still enjoy them.
 

DRS

Old Mossy Horns
Kind of the same thing here. Field trialed hard for quite a few years. Running every week and sometimes more. Gotta keep'em in shape to field trial. It does get to be like a job at times. I like to still run them in the pen during the off season about once a month, but that hasn't happened this year.

If I have pups I will run them once a week after starting them. Always think you have to give the young dogs plenty of ground time. I'll still go to some pup hunts and the bloodlines we run might not win a hunt but they can hold there own, even with the high powered dogs out there today. If the pup hunts would still be 4 hours instead of 3 or less hours, I'm willing to bet that old blood line would up the ante.

Many of the field trialers have went to speed and no hunt. Well, I like to hunt with my hounds. Not to say I haven't had my share of speed demons that were cutters and swingers. Most of which were crazy as could be. I try to breed for good demeanor and intelligent hounds. I would much rather have a good handling average hound that hunts good, theses days.
 
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Southside

Ten Pointer
I don't do much if any in the off season anymore other than the addressee exercise they get around the house. Its been a while but for many years the opening day of training season which was/is in mid August was as much anticipated. We would run several days a week until bow season started.
 
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