Sad day!

[jetjockey]

Yesterday was a sad, but happy day.  My wife and I made the 500 mile round trip to meet my trainer and drop my Brittany off for summer camp.  He will be driving out in the next week or two to his summer camp in SD.  It's always tough dropping her off knowing we won't get her home until after the Brittany  AA Nationals at the end of November, but we know she will have a blast at camp being trained on pheasants, sharptails, and chickens.  She will train for two months and then start trials in mid Sept and run through early Dec.  this will be her 4th summer at camp training on wild birds.  If anyone ever gets a chance to send their dogs off to the Dakotas, I highly suggest it.  My dad sent his pup off last summer and she was a wild bird machine after only two moths on wild birds in SD.  Summer camp is probably the best money spent for training for a bird dog.  Most dogs will see more wild birds in one summer then they will see the rest of their carrier.  I guess the good thing is that I can finally cuddle with my wife again without squeezing a dog in between us, but I'll still miss her.  I'm hoping to make it out to the prairies in the fall to watch her run in the wild bird championships before Nationals.  After Nationals, we will be hunting quail like fiends for two months before the spring circuit.

[10Key]

Wow, you guys are tough. We have been through a couple training stints, the longest for our dog to be away was 10 days...We were missing Chukar so much by that 10th day, we just had to go get him Wild bird experience is invaluable though, good on you!

[MLBowhunting]

Just awesome. 

[YellowDog]

Man oh man, please don't start a Sad Day topic in the hunting dog thread.  My first thought was that someone lost their four legged hunting partner. 

That being said that dog will be living the bird dog dream working all those birds.   

[jetjockey]

Haha.  Didn't really think about that!   It's always tough to let her go for that long, but my wife and I always said we would never hold her back.  When we got into this we only planned on her  being gone until early November, but when she started qualifying for the Brittany AA Nationals it added a month to the circuit.  The Gun Dog nationals runs at the end of October but in the Brittany world most Pros don't even attend the GD Nationals.  So in order to get a chance at winning one of the nationals we have to leave her a month longer.  The sad thing is when we dropped her off, she ran up to the horse trailer and jumped in her box.  I'm not sure she even misses us and she seemed happy to head back to work.  Then again, if she didn't seem happy, we wouldn't continue to run her and she'd retire to being our house pet and my hunting buddy. 

[Stilly bay]

I am pretty sure my next pup will be going to prairie grouse summer camp. sounds like a great experience.

I haven't looked into it much, but I was wondering how much time will on the ground will each dog have? there is only so much time in a day, even less time when you can only run mornings and some evenings due to the heat. so I imagine a trainer with a large stable of dogs wouldn't have time to get everyone into birds everyday. do the dogs get individual attention or are they run as a pack?

what happens if your dog runs into a medical emergency when he is a couple states away under the trainers supervision? sounds like they will be in a harsh environment (heat /snakes)  in as real a hunting situation as you can get, so they are bound to get into some trouble. does the trainer foot the bill for any accidents on his watch?

and what is the going rate to send a pup to the prairies?
feel free to PM me on any of the above.

[jetjockey]

Stilly.  I'll say that it all depends on the dogs and the trainer.  My trainer usually takes 35-40 dogs to camp.  It's mostly Brits, but he always has setters and pointers as well. Typically, the younger dogs get worked more then the older dogs do, but the older dogs get worked longer.  The older trial dogs just need to be kept crisp and remember how wild birds work while the younger dogs need more "training".  Typically the young dogs get worked more because of that, and if I took a guess the young dogs probably get worked 3-4 times a week, and also roaded 3-4 times per week.  The big thing about summer camp however is the amount of work a trainer can get done in a short time.  When I sent my dog off the first time we dropped her off a month early so the yard work was done and she was ready to hit the ground running when she was at camp.  She was dropped off the first of June, was at camp the second week of July, and she was fully broke by mid August, when she was just 14 months old.  My dad sent his pup off last summer without a month of warm up.  She was at camp for a total of 2 months and she came home broke to wing, broke to the flush (she would stop to flush) and she backed.  If she would have been able to get the yard work in like my pup she would have been fully broke as well.  A lot of the young dogs will only get worked for 15-20 minutes a day, but in that time they will often have 3 or 4 pheasant points.  So the dogs get a ton of bird work.

Vet fees are the responsibility of the owner if something happens.

My trainer is very inexpensive, and from what I've seen, trainers in the Midwest and east coast are a lot cheaper then pointing dog trainers on the west coast.  My trainer charges $350 per month but the average price out here is about $450-600 per month.

[Stilly bay]

thanks!

at the high end $600 a month seems like one hell of a bargain!

I really prefer to do my own training and what not, but that much wildbird experience, in such a short amount of time is something I couldn't come close to duplicating unless I move to the prairies myself.

[Happy Gilmore]

My trainer is very inexpensive, and from what I've seen, trainers in the Midwest and east coast are a lot cheaper then pointing dog trainers on the west coast.  My trainer charges $350 per month but the average price out here is about $450-600 per month.

That certainly would make since why he costs so little. Most trainers out here only take on about 15-20max and spend a couple thousand dollars shooting birds over the dogs' head every month or two.

Put 35 dogs on a truck and don't have any expense for killing birds over the dogs and $350 a month is probably do-able..

[jetjockey]

From what I've seen the trainers out here don't seem to think they need to kill a ton of birds over a dog to get them steady to wing and shot.  Hundreds of trainers out here head to the Dakotas during the summer and they don't kill any wild birds over them since it would be illegal.  They get a few birds killed over them after the sharptail/chicken opener, but other then that, they just don't need to kill a ton of birds over them to do what they need to do!  However, even when my trainer is training at his home training grounds on wild and released birds he doesn't charge any more even though he occasionally kills released birds over the dogs.  Like I've said before, it just seems to be a different world out here when it comes to pointing dogs and pointing dog trainers.  And I've even had a Pro who is very knowledgeable on the Northwest and Mid-west trials tell me that!

[jetjockey]

My trainer is very inexpensive, and from what I've seen, trainers in the Midwest and east coast are a lot cheaper then pointing dog trainers on the west coast.  My trainer charges $350 per month but the average price out here is about $450-600 per month.

That certainly would make since why he costs so little. Most trainers out here only take on about 15-20max and spend a couple thousand dollars shooting birds over the dogs' head every month or two.

Put 35 dogs on a truck and don't have any expense for killing birds over the dogs and $350 a month is probably do-able..

Don't forget that $350 is only the training costs.  If you have a dog who is campaigned there are handling costs as well.  My trainer actively campaigns between 20-25 trial dogs.  So he makes a lot on handling fees as well.  That's why the Pros like to attend cluster trials with championships associated  with them.  I don't think my trainer attended a single weekend trial last year that wasn't associated with a weekday championship or weekday 1 hr trial.  But there is enough championships and 1 hr trials out here to do that.  The west coast just doesn't have the number of trials and championships to do that, and thus, trainers have to charge more.


Happy.  Here's an idea how it works on the Brit circuit out here in the fall.  The first AA championship is the Nebraska championship that runs from Sept 10-15th.  Then the Chicken championship starts on the 17th and runs through the 21st ( also in NE).  Then the Hawkeye club holds a weekend trial the 22nd-23 in Iowa.  Followed immediately after that on the same grounds is the pheasant championship that runs during the week between the 24-27th.  Then the IowA BC holds another weekend trail on the same grounds on the 29th and 30th.  Typically the ABC SD championship runs directly after the weekend trial, on the same exact grounds.  This year is the exception however since they couldn't secure the grounds for 3 weeks straight so the SD CH was run this spring.  After the SD championship typically ends its down to MO for the quail championship that runs from Oct 15-19th.  Then there is a weekend trial followed by another 1 hr AA weekday trial.  This year however due to a scheduling conflict in the spring, they will hold the Prairie States SD championship instead of the 1hr AA trial.  Again, it's a weekend trial squeezed between two championships.  After that trainers will either peel off to attend the Gun Dog Nationals in MI, the Dixie Land CH and weekend trial near Nashville, head up to IL for another Championship and weekend trial, or get ready for the AA Nationals at the end of Nov in AR.

The trial circuit is a lot bigger out here then back home on the west coast.  The spring circuit is longer yet with even more championships.  However, the Classic Championships that 90% of the Pros attend still take place in the fall, the spring circuit is much more spread out.

Wild may tell you about a Brittany extravaganza that supposed sly takes place in TX in the winter as well, but I've never heard of it, nore does it exist on the Brittany trial schedule.

Like I said, it's a lot different out here.  If trainers had to rely on the occasional weekend trial like they do back home, they would HAVE to charge more, but luckily they don't.

[Happy Gilmore]

But to consider, as you pointed out, that trial schedule is packed!

With retrievers this is no different......
When a dogs' on the truck running trials or, waiting to run a trial....travel takes time, 2-3 days of running the actual trial.... especially with 20-25 dogs being on the truck and running trials.....time will be devoted to the dogs who are ready to WIN.

That doesn't leave much time for training so, I'd expect a lower price for that reason as well.....

[jetjockey]

Happy.  Yes , that's a busy schedule but it's also a normal trial schedule for a pro out here.  In the spring the only difference is that the trials are a little more spread out, but there are more of them.  In the spring a trainer might get a week break between trials, but that's it.  Most of the trainers are on the road trialing for 2-3 months and dont make it home during that time.  Training is done during training season and trialing is done during trial season.  Obviously with the schedules some of the Pros run, there is no time to train during trial season.  But if you drop a dog off in May during the start of training season and pick it up in mid Sept at the beginning of trial season, you still pay the same price. 

[Happy Gilmore]

No two business models from different regions are alike no matter what you're doing..

[Curly]

Man oh man, please don't start a Sad Day topic in the hunting dog thread.  My first thought was that someone lost their four legged hunting partner. 

That being said that dog will be living the bird dog dream working all those birds.   

 

I almost didn't open the thread cuz I didn't want to  ............. glad the story wasn't as sad as I had feared!