Thread: Time commitment in training/having a deer indicator dog

Hi all,
Very keen to, at some point, get myself a deer indicator dog. I'm still pretty new to deerstalking, so I'd wait until I'm a bit more experienced/knowledgeable before dragging a dog into the equation. Anyway, I'm interested to know how much time is involved in first training the dog and from that point onwards, maintaining those skills you trained it for. I guess it would vary quite a bit with each dog (and breed), and the more training the better, but maybe you could give me an idea as to how much time you spent on your dog (eg. hours a week for how many months)? And how often should you take the dog out hunting to maintain its ability to scent and indicate? Approximately how old long would the training period span for, as in how old would you start training the dog and how old would the dog be when its trained to the point that its actually useful (or not a nuisance) out in the bush?

Cheers for the help