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:
: --Previous Message--
: Is the 3 hour dog passe'? With the change
: in
: the ffa format to one and a half hours,
: there is only the National Ch at 3 hours.
: The Continental is 1 hour and 50 minutes
: now. Many dogs don't finish at grand
: junction, handlers picking up if they don't
: feel they aren't in the race. So where is
: the Big incentive to breed or condition for
: 3 hours? Plus a dog needs to recover from a
: 3 hour heat.
:
: I don't understand the mystique of three
: hour heats. When I was hunting, I commonly
: used a dog for half a day which for me was
: closer to four hours. If I'm judging a
: field trial, I don't want to look at two
: dogs for three hours, one is enough for me
: to make up my mind. Plus for an amateur, 30
: or 40 hours in the saddle is more than
: enough, I'm not interested in 180 or more,
: or even 90 for that matter.
:
:
:Harry -

I am with you on this one.

When I had just one dog, that dog had to go all day and that meant a good four hours in the morning, a break for lunch(My lunch, not the dog's) and three or four hours in the afternoon. When I upgraded to two dogs, some years later, once they both learned their trade, I often hunted them together, again all day, more often than not.

Back then I typically hunted four days a week, so the dogs got a break pretty much every other day, except weekends.

So I guess those dogs of mine from back then had a little bit of bottom. So did I, back then.

RayG