As my wife and I were looking for a new “pet”, Julie invited us to watch some training at Gustavo’s. Needless to say, I was impressed by what I saw and it shifted my perception of what one could teach the family dog. During a break in the action, I asked Gustavo how many hours of work it takes to get a dog to this point (trial ready). He stares ahead for a moment to ponder a number, but just looks at me, shakes his head a little, and replies “a lot”. Now that I have been at it for a little bit I feel I can make a rough approximation as to what it will cost me, time-wise, to get Vander and me through our BH. Here it goes…
I am assuming my BH will take place on June 6th because as near as I can tell, this is the first trial in Michigan in 2013. I have been training Vander for 10 months (he is 14 months old). So in June we will have had 16 months of training.
- Each training session is 2 hours long and I would say I average 3 sessions per month (3 out of 4 Sundays to be precise). Granted, I am not working the dog this whole time, but I am there and absorbing material from other people’s lessons, which I apply, so I will lump it in as training. So that is 6 hours per month x 16 months = 96 hours with Gustavo
- Conservatively, I train Vander every day for 30 minutes. I usually have one “long” training session that is 20 minutes long and then one or two shorter ones. But 30 minutes is certainly a minimum. So 16 months x 30 days x .5hours = 240 hours personal training
- So 240 hours + 96 hours = 336 hours training to reach BH. And again, this number is the minimum.
- If you assume that this level of training stays constant and I could train one level per year, that would mean 1344 hours to reach IPO3. But truth be told, that is probably a little low considering the fact I have not yet started tracking. So I would bump this up and round it out to 1500 hours minimum training time.
But this is just training time to get titles. What about the free time in general I spend with Vander every year? For simplicity, I will not include miscellaneous time like throwing the ball, checking on him, telling him not to chase the cat, etc… 🙂
- Every day Vander gets minimum 1 hour of walking time, 1 30+ minute walk in the morning and one 30+minute walk in the evening. 365 days x 1 hour = 365 hours walking
- Using the training time methodology above… 336 hours / 16 months = 21 hours per month x 12 months = 252 hours training per year
- But getting to training at Gustavo’s requires driving too… 1.5 hours each way, 3 hours total x 36 sessions per year = 108 hours
- 365 + 252 + 108 = 725 hours annually in 100% dog-centered activity
Every year there are 8760 hours. If I get 8 hours of sleep a night then that means I am awake for 5840 hours per year. There are 260 working days and I am gone for 9 hours (8 working and 1 commuting) during a work day so now we are down to 3500 hours of time I am awake and free to do anything. Of those, Vander gets 725. That is 20% of my free time! If Vander makes it to 12 years old that will mean we will have given Vander 8700 hours of time. So in his life we will have spent a full year, or 2.5 years of free time, doing dog-centered activities. I guess this is why we consider him more than the family dog. He is “family”. 🙂
As a licensed engineer and math instructor at the local college I appreciate your use of mathematics and reasoning. So now, the next time a student asks the everlasting, trite question of “When am I ever going to use this stuff,” I’ll simply reply, “When you get a GSD.”
LOLOLOL
Brian as I read your post all I kept thinking was “you are such an engineer!”
Me too!!!!!
And this is why I hate math, I can’t follow it all the way to the end. 😀
Great post!!
Josie, you and I can stick with our “Honey Badger” motto!
Good lord! While I was reading this I thought to myself, “this guy has GOT to be an engineer!”
I thought it was just a normal post, but I’m an engineer, too.
It’s funny, I compete in professional marathon canoe racing, and we figure a minimum of 250 and upper range of 350 hours per year of training, plus races. I guess that means it takes about the same amount of time to train me as a GSD.
Add the canoe training time to the GSD time, and it’s no wonder I don’t get anything done around the house.
As engineers we are taught to list all of our assumptions and show all our work! Otherwise we get NO credit! 🙂
Ok, so I failed calc in college, but I say for sure that Roman takes up about 90% of my time…not even kidding. However, I wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂