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.