Dog Shutting Down

There's a lot of all age blood in your dogs pedigree. Young dogs often don't know how to pace themselves, especially dogs bred to run. When you let them out of the box they think they have 30 min to 1 hour to get it done. Most figure it out with birds and time. Unless you feel your dog is physical distress, keep it on the ground and kill some birds for it.
 
Took Bree hunting yesterday. At about 7:00 AM I fed her a half a cup of food with some Karo Syrup on it. We started hunting about 11:00 and took a little break about 12:30 when I fed her half of a peanut butter/honey sandwich. I also spiked her water with some Coconut Water to make her drink. Hunted another two hours without any issues. She ran hard and strong the whole time with no ill effects.

Gumboot, you are right about her pedigree. This dog was born to run and has one speed, "pedal to the metal". She will probably turn out to be a better trial dog than pheasant dog. Time will tell. She did point two roosters yesterday which I shot over her.
 
George: did you have a chance to visit with your vet about Bree quitting?

Sounds like it was a one-occasion thing...
 
Sounds to me like he figured out what her problem is

I’ve” hit the wall “ exercising and it will shut you down
 
If the dog isn't running for at least 3-4 hours, I always feed them in the am...oftentimes it is even earlier, giving a 5 hour window before the work begins...been doing this for 25+ years, though when in MT/ND I don't feed in the am for reasons stated, and the dogs still do fine, but I will give them a bit of something after the morning hunt...I am no expert, probably just doing what I was taught. Wonder when sled dogs get fed? after they run, I suppose...
 
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benelli-banger said:
If the dog isn't running for at least 3-4 hours, I always feed them in the am...oftentimes it is even earlier, giving a 5 hour window before the work begins...been doing this for 25+ years, though when in MT/ND I don't feed in the am for reasons stated, and the dogs still do fine, but I will give them a bit of something after the morning hunt...I am no expert, probably just doing what I was taught. Wonder when sled dogs get fed? after they run, I suppose...
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I am with you. When hunting in a state with hunting at sunrise I would never feed before a hunt, but I have always done this when starting at 10 am and have never had an issue. In fact I have always felt my dogs have seemed to have more stamina then dogs that were not fed. I also don't feed in the evening until a couple hrs after the hunt, to allow a cool down period. My current dog will not eat unless I spruce his dry food up with a can of wet food or some warmed up bacon grease.
 
The consensus from what I've read about sled dogs is that when they are working they are fed twice a day. However, all info consistently states NO kibble in the AM feed, but rather a wet meal consisting of a high fat meat source and plenty of water, basically fuel the dog can immediately use. Water can be often overlooked before the hunt but as one article stated dogs lose up to 30% more water through just breathing during exercise than when not, so hydration before exercise is imperative. Evening meals consists of a meat and kibble mixture after the workouts have finished.

As a side note for me personally, I will often times use Sardines packed in water as a high fat, high protein source for mixing in with the dogs dry kibble. Even dogs that appear too tired to eat will usually gobble this down.

Here is one interesting feeding regime of a sled dog kennel. Soup anyone?: http://www.mammothdogteams.com/feeding-time-at-mammoth-dog-teams-kennel.html
 
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One more thing I would point out is muscles fuel is glycogen and glycogen uptake into muscle is greatest if you feed a carbohydrate fats combination immediately after exercise within twenty minutes of the exercise

I water first then immediately feed one hot dog with a dog biscuit or hot dog bun when I put them in the box after a hunt before I drive off to the camp to take advantage of this phenomenon

Im talking about the last hunt for that dog for that day not if I plan to hunt that dog a mile down the road
 
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