Hello everyone. I'm from Canada and will hopefully be taking Duggan for his first duck hunt at the end of October; a time when the water he'll be expected to work in is very cold. How cold is too cold for him. Will sending him in shorten his life span. This is my first gun dog. He will be 6 months at that time is shows great promise. Both his parents are great hunting dogs but I don't want to damage him hunting that late in the colds of the season. Thanks.
Hi Johnny, and welcome to the forum. I'm afraid I can't answer your questions, just wanted to say Hi, I think at 6 months you would want to limit what Duggan is doing - bones and joints are still developing so I think you would have to be pretty careful about jumping and overdoing it generally. Not sure about the cold water - I haven't heard of any issues of shortened lifespan, but perhaps some of the hunting/shooting/gundog members might be more informative. I know a lot of gundog owners use drying jackets for their dogs - the labs and the spaniels. And there is always "cold water tail" to possibly avoid. That is if it IS related to cold water. A "sprained tail" may be more an accurate description. I do hope someone else pops up to help. Jac
Are you working with a field training group? People in your group who hunt your waters should be able to help you. The group we were with was very careful of cold water and particularly with a young dog. Don't want to put the dog off. Our own trainer put his dogs in water in November, Georgian Bay, he put neoprene vests on them. I've seen photos of them hunting with ice on the water and snow on the ground. Some of our group thought he was pretty hard on his dogs. It's the joints that will get them if it's cold and the vest doesn't cover the legs. However, with the crappy hot summer we've had in Ontario the water might not be that cold.
