Feeding your bird dog before hunting, is it necessary?

I once knew a guy that fed each of his pointers one full can of dog food before hunting. He said it is all they would eat if they knew they were going to hunt. He thinks it gives them an energy boost. My personal opinion is that I’ve tried that many years ago and I didn’t notice any difference.

I knew another guy that use to feed his dogs before hunting but his reasoning was so that his dogs wouldn’t eat his birds. LOL Looked to me like the dogs were a bit thin to begin with. Here’s a true related story:

About 11 or so years ago… … when I was training all pointing breeds I had a gentleman bring his two pointers for training. His primary complaint was that both dogs wanted to eat his birds. Both dogs were on the good side of malnourished. I asked him what he fed and if the dogs were wormed recently and that I thought that had something to do with it. He was a bit red faced and insisted they were at ideal body weight. After 30 days of feeding them Purina O.N.E. both dogs had put on weight and would pass the butterfly test. The eating of birds stopped.

Purina had an energy bar they came up with not too long ago but it flopped because most folks didn’t want to pay the high price and figured if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Purina released a study not too long ago that found that if you will feed your dog on a once per 24 hour plan (adults) and try feeding them as close to 24 hours as possible prior to a rigorous work out that you will get optimal performance. Undigested and partially digested foods in the G.I. tract can actually slow and overheat a dog.

Of course if you are going to hunt your dog all day, what do you do? Personally I take frequent breaks, offer plenty of water and alternate dogs.

If you are a one dog man, then frequent breaks are usually enough and as the dog gets more experience he will tend to set a slower pace because he knows he is in it for the long haul. That is just one reason why it’s not good to hunt trial dogs all day long because come trial day they will want to pace themselves.