Nice lookin' pup. I think she's the one giving the finger tho, she's not going anywhere.
My bird dogs look similar to yours! High speed, low drag setters. They’re bred for horseback field trials but let me follow them on foot. Bird finding machines!
My American Lab has fairly long legs and lean. She can go and go in these pheasant fields. Even battling through four foot snow drifts today. A couple of times she flat disappeared. She has unbelievable endurance.
I am sure it varies by line and overall fitness, but as long it is colder than 60 degrees, my 2 english labs run with the GSPs and don't want to stop. But we are careful with their weight and they jog with my wife off-season. There is a fair amount of body differences in English labs depending on how the mix of "show" and "field" varieties were bred into your line. Our older one is super thick and stocky, our newer one is thinner and leaner build - a real runner. It was clear in their parentage that they would end up this way. So if you find the right breeder you can get a whole range of animals.
That is what I'm talking about . . . . fill the country and run to the birds.
The best advice we got was to remember that the dog is a family member 12 months of the year, and a Hunter for only a few. Also unless you are trialing or hunt testing, you can train the dog to hunt the way you want to hunt. Ours knows all kinds of handy tricks for jump shooting ducks or pinching late season wild roosters. I doubt any of them are sanctioned skills, but she helps us be more effective and for us, that’s the point. Yah....even though we are more active than the norm, we know the pup will end up being more a house dog than otherwise. So the dog's ability to deal with whatever environment it finds itself in is very important. We've mentioned a couple times the heat here. People tend to think of Vegas as being hot during July-August, that's not quite right. It's really hot then, but the shoulder months are hot too, just not quite as hot. The dog won't be made to suffer through heat though. We already have a rescue dog which lives inside with access to the back yard through the doggy door. Here's something I forgot to mention before, we have quite a pigeon problem. Those rats-with-wings are in for a rude surpriseYou’ll go nuts trying to sort through dog people’s opinions on dogs.
Someone mentioned earlier and I completely agree...make sure you find a breed and/or a litter that can handle the conditions you want to hunt primarily. Our lab is 85 lean lbs. We wanted a bigger dog because of our extreme cold and snow, for big late season water and -20 degree pheasants but early season we have to be very careful with her because of the heat. Just something to keep in mind.
I'm really pleased that folks have taken the time to share opinions on dogs here, it really helps with focusing on obvious things that aren't so obvious to one who isn't experienced with hunting dogs.VG...how much do your labs weigh?
Here the problems are hitchhikers, and pointy stuff, which is pretty much everything in the desert. This brings up another question I'd thought of but forgotten to ask, what about using boots? Is that even done?
