Things is slow so if you had

a dog that had run in horseback trials and it wasn't unusual for him to be out at 300 to 700 yards and sure enough hunting, would you 1) let him roll and try to keep track of him with the GPS and hope you find him on point or 2) put the collar on him and break him back to comfortable hunting range say 150 - 300 yards. What say ye? If you foot hunt preface your reply with that fact and if you ride a UTV same thing.

I trial a little and mostly hunt. If I had a big time trial dog like you have, I would not pull him back unless I was finished trialing.

I foot hunt, I would let him roll

UTV-----let him roll!!

Chet, I used to run AA dogs in a past life. I found that the good ones knew the difference between hunting and trialing. I think they keyed off of the horse. They would stay with me on foot especially if I was knocking down some birds for them. They would pull into 150-200 yards for me. I have always thought that foot Hunting was good for them and helped the handle on them.

Mostly this. I now have the opposite. I can put her down in a 30 acre NSTRA field and she'll get top scores on obedience. (mostly handling) I think the NSTRA dogs can smell the field with all the pleasant scents. Shell be in front of other dogs when hunted from a UTV. I have to bump her in a few times when hunting from a UTV.

I think most dogs are born with their range and there's little we can do to change them forever.

UTV Let them roll!! If you are going to continue to field trial the dog. If not I would use the whistle at times to let him know where you are at and hopefully have him looking for you instead of you looking for him all the time. Of coarse with the garmin you do know where he is at but I like mine to look up for me not to come all the way back to the mule but to want to hunt for me also not just himself.

2x
And then I would only do it if the land I hunted called for it.
If you have a utv and a lot of land, I would let the boy stretch out to his normal range.
If not put a little more handle on him.
They can learn to hunt closer in thicker areas were your walking, and still get the distance in open pastures.
Just spend some time working them on both.

In referencing Bill's response, I think that with the advent of beepers, trackers, astro garmins, we have have become more comfortable in letting our dogs stretch it out more if they will. Mine are the type that will hunt for you, but not hunt to you 100% percent of the time. I have two now that all I have to do is hit that certain note on the whistle and "he gone". You better be hooked up and ready to roll when that happens. When you see a glimpse of him crossing that other ridge to the front can be a thing of beauty and stuff of legend. Last year I had to ride for 5 minutes just to see if that little white spec was really a dog on point. It was and I got out of the mule and stepped right in the middle of them. It is those scenes I replay in my mind that keep me doing this in spite of all the challenges we face just to say we still quail hunt. When I die, I hope my ashes are strewn over some ranch in West Texas because it is there that I have spent my finest days and hours and had more fun chasing quail and dogs than the law should allow. Lord please give us one more Golden Era of Quail.

I do both.

Let the dog run.

Well this didn't go as I thought it would. Since it's been about a year since I posted about Beau I hoped folks who didn't know I was trialing a dog would give their input but SOMEONE took away all the mystery in the first post(thanks DoubleB20 ) But yes I'm through trailing and I'm going to let him roll as long as I'm able to keep up with him. He's a pretty smart pup and I think if I can kill some birds for him he will adjust to the mule. I really thought there would be more folks who would break him back and I gave that some thought but he is a strong bird finder and with bird counts down the way they are I want to let him go hunting.

If anyone is interested the trialing business is hard on a dog, at least from my view point. Beau was very successful as a derby and came close to being in the money at 3 Open Championships this past season. His handler wanted him year round and that's when it came home to me that I'd seen the dog for 2 months in the last two years. From 9 wks. to 8 months I messed with him almost daily and got really attached to the old fart. But I was fast getting disconnected from him.

The last straw was a 3wk period between a trial in Ark. and the Masters in GA. I thought about him being on the road and in a crate for weeks at a time and realized that was his life for 9-10 months a year. Now he was worked, and cared for by Virgil Moore and he did a great job with him but it got to really bothering me that this was the life I'd put him in. Now I guess if I had 3 or 4 dogs with the handler it would be a little different and my connection with any one dog wouldn't be so strong, but not being a rich man that wasn't going to happen. So he's home, he's staying home, I'm going to hunt him till the hide slips. He's even got a couple of lady friends that are going to drop by this summer and I know he'll like that.

It's a shame we have so few SD trials in our area. I had a neighbor who had a national champion amateur AA britt. He let the pro handle her in the open competition and he would run her in the amateur.

I remember that you had a couple of pups out of Belle, who was a littermate to Jill aka Elhew Sunflower. Bell was bigger running than Jill. Snakeye and Jill both ran SD trials, and Levi ran NSTRA along with Belle. I think the venue somewhat dictates the range and handle.

These are the pups out of Belle. Kate was one of the best quail dogs I ever hunted over and Dixie was real close but had the worst dang tail I ever saw. They came back from Canada when they were two and both flat broke but I wasn't in a situation where I could trial them. Kate would have done well. Both are gone now and sure miss them. Wish I had a place to keep a horse so I could run old Beau in some Amateur trials.

Hannah's first litter by Snakefoot had one pup with a crooked tail. Levi and Belle out of that litter both had sickle tails. The pup that I got from Bryce had a sickle tail. It had to come from Hannah. She was nominated for the HOA.

I've always called her Lou, and with the quality of dogs she produced from different sires she could throw a few with bad tails for me. And when you look at the gyps out of her that threw champions Lou and that mother line was probably top 5 in shooting dog production for 10 or 15 years. She produced two HOF champions in Swami and Sunflower and Hannabelle will eventually be in the HOF. Swami produced Sinbad who with Hannabelle produced Offlee Amazin(a male that along with his dad Sinbad continue to drop fine open shooting dogs). And there are others from that mother line. She's a real special gyp.

You're right. I'm getting old. Her call name was Lou. I should have looked at her pedigree before I posted. I hunted with her up in North Dakota.

When hunting wild birds, I am walking in front of a truck full of relief dogs and clients. I have and have had such dogs, tho they never have never been worked off horseback, and I really prefer them working in sight. Altho fences mean very little to dogs, I like to stay away from them, and prefer not to go find a gate to get through, and perhaps need permission from a landowner when a dog is on point on the other side of one. I use the collar judiciously when they get out to the edge of what I am comfortable with.

And when we are walking on a shooting preserve, I sure don't want him galavanting off to hunt the next pasture.

This is not to say I have ever changed one's mind about how far out he prefers to hunt, just how far out I am willing to accept.

Thanks a bunch Chet for posting this thread. I love range discussions. I don't think distance is as important as location. A dog can't range too far for me as long as it is between 10 and 2. I have a problem with the one I have now getting behind or too far to the side. My Honky Tonk Attitude pup was the fastest bird dog I've ever seen, but we always knew what direction she was going. I really miss her.

I don't think your gaining anything by having big runners stay between 10 and 2. As long as you are moving forward shorter running dogs will eventually cover the same ground . Big runners that range out to 9 and 3 o clock is where they excel at. At those points short runners are not even covering that area at all

What you gain by a dog being in the cone (10 & 2) is that to stay there he has to cross the front once in a while. If you extend the 10 & 2 you see that it covers a world of ground. If you extend the 9 & 3 you soon see that unless you stay put, stay stationary your dog can be a bunch of yards to the left or right and way behind you. I have a 5 year old gyp that stays in the cone but I've had a lot more that don't and I sure prefer her.