Evaluating Hounds At Trials

[Pine Mt Beagles]

TIME IN THE FIELD ,,,INCREASES"" ABILITY"" AND ""CONDITIONING""

KEEP'EM RUNNING
PINE MT BEAGLES

[Ky Scott]

How about conditioning you're dogs abilty to run a rabbitt, feeding him some good food at the end of the day after you've pounded his broke up bloody rear for about 8 hours and praying he measures under 15 inches

Seriuosly though I think ability comes from breeding and conditioning. Without conditioning a young dog wont figure out what his true potential or ability is but without the breeding you probably should'nt waste you're time.

Another thing. If I was a judge HUNT WOULD DEFINATELY BE A BIG FACTOR. Especially on close calls.

[BuschBound]

I voted for Nutrition- If your dog isn't feed and watered properly and kept in good health (Shots, parisite free)all year long your ability, conditioning, nose brains and what ever other atributes you may want out of your dog is for nothing... yeah, he may look good for about 4 of 5 hours on a given day but up here we have trials almost every weekend and to stay at the top they have to be Nutritionally fit.. If you keep your hounds healthy you will get more out of your dogs everyday than on a day to day basis.

[Wilkerson Boys]

I have a little 3 yr. old male named Maniac that can be and was run minimum hrs. before I went to Wisconsin. This little male, 13-1/2" ran 5-1/2 days straight on snoeshoe hare and stayed on the front with the best getting ur done! Some dogs with ability don't have to be conditioned in my opinion. Conditioning is better, yes but SOME of the better dogs that have that ability we speak of I have seen stay in the pen for weeks and come out of it and kick butt. JMO Wayne

Edit: I did say conditioning is better and it will bring out the best in any hound. That's plain ole common sense. I will stick by the gun and say that certain hounds with ability that are left in the pen for days, weeks can come out of the pen and kick butt to many, many hounds with less ability.

[joe kaschak]

I have heard of guys that ran their hounds along a trail in back of their 4 wheeler to condition the hound. I have also seen a thread (not sure if on this board or not) on using a threadmill to condition hounds. Time in the field chasing rabbits serves to hone a skill (ability). Nutrition, imho, is part of conditioning (if you fed your hound all the food it wanted, including ice cream and potato chips, you would be hard pressed to keep it in shape no matter how hard you ran it).

[Bobby Vest]

Ability can not be sacrificed. You can run a bad dog forever and he will never become a good dog, maybe a fair dog. The thing I have always said though is a dogs brain does not work at it's full potential until it's body is in it's best condition. No dog or person can perform at their best until they are completely conditioned. Fatigue will hurt any athlete in any sport.

[Pine Mt Beagles]

BOBBY
GOOD POINT,A FIT BODY PROMOTES A FIT MIND//////////////

PINE MT BEAGLES

[island ridge hounds]

i really believe that if you have ability and heart in a hound he will
get the attention of a lot of people and make it rough on a lot of hounds.
run the hound day in and day out and get him conditioned. you do the
math.
bwall