Another idea for training during the winter, when it gets dark even before you get home from work is to move your training table inside the garage. If you don’t have one, build one along one length of the garage wall. If you like, you can put shelves under it, face it with panneling and have a new storage place for your decoys and other hunting paraphernalia.
By moving the training table inside the garage it provides a warm, lighted place to work on lots of commands, including, hold and fetch (trained retrieve), over, down, whoa, and anything else you would otherwise have to bend over for. Plus, having them off the ground and on a narrow runway helps the dog focus on the task at hand.
My table is 2′ wide and 14′ long. I would have made it 16′, but it was too long for the space I had available. I framed the table with 2×4’s and made 2×4 legs. I used one sheet of 3/4″ plywood, cut in half for the deck. Julie likes to use a piece of shelving as a ramp to walk the dogs up, whereas, I either have them jump up or lift them up. It makes one more place you can train when it’s dark out.
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