Correct weight?

[CYJ]

Hello Limey Kennels. Did you mean Barney Fife died or M. Harris? Unless another Harris, I talked with M. Harris about 3 months ago. Barney Fife and Tar Heel were partners many years back and had a very good dog pulling win- lose record. There are many gold nuggets on conditioning in the Crenshaw keep/Barney Fife keep and sure Ca. Jack has some great stuff. Faron's books should as well.

Keeping prospects lean and wormed out before slowly working to weight is important. Walking with a long knotted rope leash and pulling harness. Some type of easy intermit dog trotting road work is still the best way to help reduce the dog slowly and tone up the body. The Old Man was 100% right about that wasting of neck & back end. To properly condition a pulling dog takes time. Can be a total time of 4 to six hours in total a day. The easy AM part usually starts around 5:00 AM to 06:AM. Yahoo

IMHO one piece of equipment that is over looked. Is a extra large proper built running low to the ground round table. Even when one is real dedicated to put the time into exercising the dog. Foul weather can set in and dog can not be worked. You can still get the easy type jogging exercise with the round table while the rain pours and the cold wind is blowing.

Breeding and picking good dogs with a strong prey type drive helps a lot as well. A dog that stays at your feet while walking is pretty much a waste of time. Unless you have a fuzzy cur dog male or female yard dog to help keep one going. LOL

Another mistake is when dog nears the end of the keep. Those last three rest days that are counted backwards from the weigh in time. The dog is not eating on a 24 hour cycle, but is eating on a 28 to 30 hour cycle counting the hour of cool down before dog is allowed water and main feeding.

Many because the dog is just resting go back to a one time 24 hour feeding cycle. That can create trying to make weight, dog to dry or wet nightmare. One reason a dog can run hot is due to not being properly clean out. Seen them pass stool during the dog pull and unable to get a second wind. Note Crenshaw talks about arriving at the Dog Show/weight pull event 30 hours prior.

Is always best to do just one dog pulling show at a time with a forfeit lost if not on time for the weigh in. Multi dog pulling shows will work for some of the dogs and against the others.

V.J. liked to use the last hardest work day and feed amount on that day adjusted out to coincide with the three rest days. Counting backwards from weigh in time. First 30 hour rest day 1/3 amount of feed of last hard work day amount. Second 30 hour rest day feed amount was 1/2 of amount of feed given on that last hard workout day feed amount. Last third and final 30 hour feed is the real kicker. The dog was feed twice the amount of that last hard work out day feed amount. Dog will look like it is pregnant with pups. But you have a full 30 hours for the dog to clean out completely. Most of his dogs were dead on weight or just slightly under. I never remember V.J. having to pay a forfeit for being over weight when I was with him.

Counting time backwards from weigh in. Water left till 24 hour mark. Reintroduced and allowed to drink till lifted head 12 hours before weigh in and 6 hours before weigh in. Dog was rubbed down real good and walked to clean out/weighed and then allowed the water. Real cold weather was allowed some some strong beef broth at the 12 and 6 hour mark.

At each 12 and 6 hour interval the skin was pulled up as well to see if dog was not getting dry. If so was allowed to drink longer as needed. The 3cc of pref Dex 2 was given under skin at 12 hour mark before being put back up. The 1 to 3cc of Azium was given 6 hours under skin before being put back up. Everybody did this different. Barney Fife did his Dex at 6 hours and Azium at 3 or one hour before weigh in.

With this extra time you could walk dog to clean out more often and weigh in right up to 30 minutes or so. This was many years ago and today may be considered obsolete. Sure a lot of better info. is out there. Did have a fellow try this dog pulling feed method a month back. Sent me a nice e-mail and said his dog was on weight and pulled extra strong to win.

If I was active today. Would buy all the latest books/DVD's etc. on working/feeding a dog. Where you live/time you have/equipment you can afford/land mass or area of land to exercise a dog/ and the basic type weather you live in will determine what you can use or do or how to feed. D. Divine was a top Horse conditioner along with the pulling dogs. He told a small group of us one time that properly working a dog was harder than a horse. It's those little foxes that can spoil the grape vine. Before V.J. sat me down and gave me sound advice on keeping it simple. I was the poster child of what not to do to a dog during a keep. When I even got the time to do it. LOL