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Daily Routine: A Typical Day with Bill Autrey

"A typical working day is I am up at 5:30, and I usually start airing dogs about 6:15. Once dogs are aired and loaded on the truck, I start cleaning kennels and also feed a light meal ( I feed twice a day). Some time between 6:15 and 8:00, I also eat my breakfast. The bird boy comes in at 8:00 and he will finish cleaning kennels, while I start doing yard work. This may consist of lining drills, running "T", swimming "T", just whatever I think is needed at that time. Bird boy will cut grass, fix fence, or load wingers if I need that. He will stay busy doing what ever needs done."

"Around noon we will eat lunch, sometimes in the house, or sometimes in the truck as we go to the fields for a field set up. In the afternoons we normally do a marking set up. This could be water or land, once again depending on what the dogs need. We end the day about 6:00 when the bird boy takes off and I air again, and then feed dogs their big meal. I then go in for supper, work on the computer, invoice clients until around 8:00, when I air the dogs again and put them down for the night. I usually go to bed about 10:00 to get some rest as it starts all over again the next day."

"We run an average of 18 to 25 hunt test a year, depending on what is available and what the dogs needing titles need to run. That means we are on the road an average of 2 week ends a month at the retriever trials. When down south we have plenty of HRC events but must travel out of state to run very much AKC. We normally run Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Arkansas but have run all over the south and midwest. It is just the opposite when we are up north. I can run an AKC event just about every week end but must travel out of state to run very much HRC. We normally run Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North and South Dakota with AKC."

- Bill Autrey