Hello to everybody! My name is Francesco Carotenuto. I am a professional dog trainer and I have a question for you guys. How many of you guys build up the stamina of your dogs? How important do you consider the dog's stamina? If you actually do what steps would you take to build it up? Thank you everybody for your attention and I would be grateful for any responses.

http://www.K9Nation1.com

HI Francesco,
First and foremost you want your dog to be at a good healthy weight and have good bones and receive quality food.If my Male carries a bit of extra weight I can see a difference in his stamina and endurance.Most dogs have a lot of stamina if they are good and healthy, plus getting regular exercise.I have built my dogs extra endurance by putting my dog on a down and running at the end of the field and do a recall, I do about 5 recalls like that on the same day 4 times a weeks to built good endurance, and also to get ready for trials.Plus it is a good exercise for dogs, they love to run anyways. I think stamina and endurance goes hand in hand.I hope I didn't confuse you, but that's what I dowith my dogs.

I think stamina is extremely important in a working dog… My dog gets a 20 minute “chuck it” session every day to build endurance. I also run at least 5 training tracks a week to build on my dog’s tracking endurance. In training, I notice a definite correlation between a dogs fitness level and the amount of quality search time you get during drug searches.

Dear Angelique , Thank you for your reply to me. From what I understand you train your dog for stamina using the recall. You don't think this way you train your dog only for sprint not for endurance? Maybe I am wrong.
Dear Matthew, Can you be a little more specific what you meant by "20 minute chuck" Does it mean you throw something for 20 minutes and he retrieves it back to you? I am more interested when you say you run the training track 5 times a week. Does it mean a stadium track, if that's you meant how many times do you go around the track? If I am not wrong the track is 400 meters.Thank you to both of you for your reply.
Francesco Carotenuto

wwwK9NATION1.COM

Sorry for the confusion…. The “chuck-it” is just a plastic arm designed to throw a ball 75 to 100 yards. You can get them at any big box pet supply store or warehouse.

When I mention track endurance I’m referring to the dogs endurance while tracking quarry. IMO endurance related to the nose… tracking, searching, or detection can only be increased by planned changes to your training routine.

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Sorry for the confusion…. The “chuck-it” is just a plastic arm designed to throw a ball 75 to 100 yards. You can get them at any big box pet supply store or warehouse.

A tennis raquet works pretty good too! <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I'm sure "endurance" has a bit different meaning/value depending on what you are doing with the dog. When we're being good, we bike with our dogs to keep them in good condition for both the show ring (not so much of that any more though <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> and their Schutzhund training. I can absolutely tell the difference in their endurance for the show ring and the training activities when we are being "good."

If you decide to bike for endurance, and you will be biking on a surface such as asphault or crushed limestone (many trails have this) it's important to start out with short distances, check pads daily (and we only bike every other day), and give time for calouses to build up on the pads.

Hope this helps..

Beth

Hi Francesco,
I keep my dogs in good shape, muscle toned,lean and keep a good stamina. It's very important for Humans in sports , the same goes for any working dog.My first BH I ever did , I had the fastest recall, club members thought my dog was going to knock me down he came so fast. The exercise I described to you has worked for me on making my recalls fast with of course great rewards when your dog gets to you.
But also kept my dogs in shape.Dogs can run for a long time and jogging was not what I could take on over night but the recall exercise I talked about is workable for most. All I can say is that dogs like human have to keep in shape for any kind of sport or physical work.I also use our pool alot in the summer, that also helps keeping my dogs in shape.I hope I am answering your question cause I am not very good at writing out explainations.English is my second language, french is my first, I still think in french so sometimes I write a little backwards!

Hi Francesco,

I don't know much about stamina training in animals but I could assume that it's the same as training stamina in humans.

This way we do something vcery similar to what Angelique does.

Sprint training is very important in building stamina but should be combined with another form of constant movement, either a run, jog or walk, with varying degrees of pace involved before the sprint.

Think of being out on a nice relaxing jog and having a nice even pace. Pick a start point and end point for your sprint (telegraph poles are great depending on distance apart :-) ), Do this maybe three times during your jog to begin and see how you feel after maybe three sessions of this.

It's very good and DOES work.

As mentioned eirlier it is ALWAYS important to build these excersises up SLOWLY to ensure the best condition is achieved at the end of the training (doesn't really end but you know what I mean, the desired result). It's much like Dog training in that patience and a good plan are the keys to success.

Hope That Helps

John

None of you use hills or mountians? Seem's like anything else aside from long runs would only build short term stamina. Look at it like a fighter, they dont only do one pace all the time. You need hills/terrain changes to tax the body in a different way. Not saying sprints dont help but it is in only one area. Not the complete package.

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None of you use hills or mountians?

Hi Steve. I chuckled with you (not at you) on your post. I have yet to locate any mountains in the plains of Northern IL. <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

That being said, somehow in this flatland our house is at the top of a small hill. We call that the Hill of Death. The dogs never have a problem with it from what I can see, but the humans sometimes do after long carries, etc. as the training field is at the bottom of this hill, and the parking is at the top. <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Beth