EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

I have been unable to hunt due to a back injury. I don't live on a ton of property and my dogs don't have much room to run so I'm worried about them gaining weight and becoming out of shape. I have surgery on the 7th and will be out of commission for a while afterwards. Any ideas on how to keep my dogs in shape while I'm out??? I'm worried that they'll become lazy and I'm also concerned about them forgetting what they're supposed to be hunting. My dogs are fairly young and just now turning on. If I'm out for a few weeks/months will I have to start all over??

I lead my bull dogs with the four wheeler. I give them about 15 min. a day. This should work for any dog , just increase distance for bay dogs

I was looking into a treadmill for dogs.....internet cost about 700.00 my friend has built his in past for ALOT less. I live in the burbs so Ihave that problem all the time...

from me.....who else. tapatalk

Look up dog carpet mill on youtube a lot of people with bully breeds use them

  the dog treadmills would be sweet to own , but you can get hit pretty hard in the pocket book owning one   lol  the plain old human treadmills can be modified to work dogs on and can be had for next to nothing , when somebody realized they didn't really wanna workout after all  lol .  :o :

We only hunt a few months out the year. The dogs ain't gonna forget what they already know. Will they be as sharp as dogs hunted every
weekend ? Of course not. But they wont forget what it is they suppose to be hunting assuming they knew before you laid them up.
Our dogs will lose a lil muscle mass from being laid up but after a hunt or two in the marshes where we hunt they muscle right back up.

If you could get someone to turn em out and let em run around once a week that would do them a ton of good until you get back on your
feet. Good luck with your surgery.

Place them with a hog hunting friend that you trust and let them hunt the dogs while your laid up.

I try to run mine once a week 5-6 miles in large fields, they get in front of the truck and go. Their are no hogs in this area.

No mate they won't forget.  At worst they'll be unfit and a bit trashy.  I would put e-collars on them for the first two or three trips back.

I jog my dogs beside a pushbike 2-3 times a week when I have a big multi day hunt coming up.  I run them about 5 miles on loose gravel road to harden there feet.  Seems to work but they are always exhausted after a big trip.

T 

Dana won't forget...  haha.  Man this time of year i leave mine on chains almost the entire summer till sometimes November.  One year i had to take a year off due to a game warden issue. My dogs didn't move for a year.  They will not forget.  Take care of yourself and then get back to hunting.  They will be fine. 

 Issue ?

 I got a wasted game charge on some meat that spoiled. It was a ticketed offense but kinda got hot after being harrassed for 8 months after admitting everything i did wrong and not knowing of such a charge.  Anyways he never wrote a ticket he just kept coming around for 8 MONTHS..  Finally i had been very easy going and did everything ask till i popped one day and so i went to jail twice over it and got my liscense pulled for 1 year.  Needless to say he left me alone for that year and as soon as i got my liscense back he came around again untill we had some words and he hasn't came around for at least 3 years now. 

I'm not the type to jumps fenses or do things wrong.  I was brought up right in all hunting laws but i hung a deer up in 30 degree weather to let age and got called into work which i worked a straight 48.  The first day atwork it got to about 50  the next was close to 75 when he showed up.  Oh well, i learned from it. 

 Sounds like he had it out for you.

What do you mean by this?

If you live within city limits and/or have nosy neighbors, any dog slatmill, spring pole, flirt pole, or anything else you can think of can an will cause you headache when you're accusednof dog fighting or conditioning dogs to fight.  Most of the public is ignorant and only believe what national geographic and animal planet tell them about dogs and training them and what to watch for.

I know what he wanted..   He wanted information on others and i wouldn't share.  I see allot because I'm always hunting but what i see is none of my business unless its on my place!  ;)

Oh well im past it now and he better have all his card right the next time he stops me! 

   I meant just that they [ the ones I looked at  ] are pretty pricey for just a tread mill , and a garage sale treadmill can be had for a little bit of nothing  [ the older ones ] without all the computer stuff on them  . me I use to just load the dogs up a couple at a time in the summer and go swimming no better way to condition muscle tone in a dog  .

I think that is what Im going to do this summer...swim them...I can fill up a metal water trough or take them to the tanks and swim them! They will stay cool while exercising! It will help build their wind up too, or at least it does for the horses!!

I raised and conditioned gamedogs for 20 yrs, (years ago, NOT ANYMORE) I can tell you that you DO NOT want a carpet mill of any kind.  A carpet mill has way too much resistance.  Any knowledgable bulldog man will tell you that a carpet mill is something a rookie would use.  A carpet mill is something you see at a pitbull conformation and weightpull show that's for sale, but aint no real dogman gonna buy one.  It is similar to the same workout the dog would get by pulling weights, which is also a NO NO if you are trying to build endurance.  When you drag weights with a dog, or run him on a carpet mill it causes the dog to become too muscle bound.  You want a strike dog out there moving freely, carrying no extra weight, and breathing easy.  Also, a carpet mill in the hands of a novice, can burn a dogs kidneys up real quick.  A treadmill should be EXTREMELY free spinning, like glass, I mean smooth, smooth, smooth.  Also, a super free spinning slatmill (one worth having) can injure a dog pretty quick if the guy using it doesn't know what he's doing.  It takes most dogs some getting used to a slatmill, because its off the ground, noisy, unnatural surface.  They can get there feet hung up in the slats very easy and then you've got torn pads.  The best ones use old tyme roller skate wheels (the cheap ones).  Also, a treadmill is way too expensive (unless you can find a used one) to need for a hogdog anyway, and most guys would just ruin the dog on it anyway.  A better idea would be to do as mentioned by someone else earlier, just hook a lead rope to them and trot them next to an ATV, MULE, etc around in a pasture.  You want to put them into whats called a "coyote trot", which is a smooth steady gait (not running, not walking).  Run them around for 30 min a few times per week and they will be in excellent shape for a dog not being used.  But in reality, you don't need to do anything, just  cut the food back.

The most common mistake is simply overfeeding.  If you are not using them, just cut way back on their feed.  I used to like my dogs where their ribs were slightly showing and you could barely see their hip bones sticking up.  Not starved, just real lean and not carrying any extra garbage around.  If you've got good dogs, they should have enough heart to get themselves back in shape in just a couple hunts, even if they've been sitting on the chain for several months.  If you keep them LEAN, they will be OK.             

Thank you red river slim I didn't realize that much about the carpet treadmill stuff

Slim, you are throwing some major generalities out there. The dog Chinaman was conditioned on a carpet mill and every dog that his owner had was.  If used properly and it is a well made freerunnin mill they have their uses. They do tend to build bunchier muscles when used too heavily.

You are right, they do have their uses,  in the hands of somebody who knows how to use it.  I probably should have clarified my point better in saying that you can't leave a dog on a carpet mill near as long as you would a slatmill.  As for Chinaman, I don't know this for a fact, but I would assume that Chinaman wasn't being conditioned to go for very long (cause he probably didn't have to), lol.   

Here  is a rig I used for a while to condition dogs.

(http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c356/bulldog79/HogHuntingPictures001.jpg) (http://s31.photobucket.com/user/bulldog79/media/HogHuntingPictures001.jpg.html)

  that's similar to what I had rigged up off the bumper of my truck mike , works pretty good if you got the room to run em  .

I also built this one to condition bird dogs. It was designed to go 4 MPH, was built on a trailer, and had an electric motor.

(http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c356/bulldog79/PhesantHuntingPicutres004-1.jpg) (http://s31.photobucket.com/user/bulldog79/media/PhesantHuntingPicutres004-1.jpg.html)


Actually the best way to condition a dog is off of horseback. Put the dog in a harness and it will pull as the horse walks. I used a walking horse so this was a pretty good clip. Once the dog stopped really pulling I would let them run free for about 45 minutes. This is the way we conditioned our competition field trial dogs. They can go waaaaaaaaaay in yonder. A dog must finish as strong as it started to win and they had to be in shape for that.

Yeah you have to be very careful on a carpet mill it you can and will mess one up on a hurry if you dont know what you are doing .  You can work a dog on a mill for 30 days and I gaurntee you if you dont know what you are doing he will be in worse shape than he was before you started !

The man that condition Chinaman am sure knew excatly what he was doing so it was no big deal but to a rookie its a real problem .   Also that swimming a dog is a good thing but if you dont watch out you dog will become muscle bound and heat up more so that he did before because muscle carrys lots of heat .

Best thing to do for a hog dog in my opinion is just get out on a four wheeler and let him trot beside it and just watch him so he does not get to hot a good way to do this is to watch his tongue once it starts to flare and get wide you better stop in a hurry as long as its long and hangin down you ok also you need to watch the tip of the tounge once it starts to flare up on the tip you are fixin to be in big trouble .

Once a dog gets red hot like that the worst thing you can do is lay one down you need to get him on this feet and start to walk him slowly to try and get his heart rate down are have the meds to fix him right there before he goes into shock .

Slim is also right about the gate of the dog beside the four wheeler you want the dog in the gate right before he goes into a lope not trotting but not loping either it is the fastest point a dog can run right before he goes into a lope .  But again you better be watching the dog close for heating up signs cause you can flat mess one up .  The big deal on the carpet mills was the drag on them it causes the dog to work much much harder and it will burn his kidneys out and mess them up .  If you can get you a free free spinning carpet mill that is a great thing but they are few and far between the old slat mills were the very best not a cheap one either some went for 3500 bucks and more .

I like that man .  We use to call them Jennys .  I like the free spinning ones you can touch with your finger and they wil travle two rounds before the stop .   Easy to build just concreat you rear end in the ground and weld arms on each side .  Put you a clip on one end for your dog and put you a ball are something the dog likes and he will chase it round and round and round .  A good track for the dog to run on is a must we us to use cotton seed hulls about a foot thick all the way around .   Before you work the dog you would go out with the water hose and water the cotton seed hull down once they got wet they are like a sponge and it makes the best track you ever seen .