Anyone who has spent enough time with hunting dogs knows they share one undeniable trait: They’re expensive. If you haven't yet felt the financial strain of managing your hunting dog’s health, it's only a matter of time before you do. From gear and performance food to GPS collars and emergency vet visits, there are countless ways to spend your hard-earned money on your hunting dog. And that list doesn't even include gear, shells, gas, or hunting licenses.

When it comes to their medical care, hunters want to partner with a veterinarian who understands their needs and those of their canine athletes. Based on my experience and crowdsourced feedback, here are five essential qualities the sporting dog community prioritizes when trying to find a hunting dog veterinarian:

For gun dog owners, few moments are more gut-wrenching than those following a snakebite. Encounters with rattlesnakes are fraught with fear and chaos as hunters rush to triage their dog and face the prospect of a life-threatening reaction.

Canine athletes are incredibly efficient metabolic machines that can create tremendous amounts of heat while burning energy. It’s a physiological trait that helps them achieve impressive feats of athleticism, but in hot ambient temperatures it can also become a liability.

The canine athlete is a unique metabolic machine that is remarkably efficient in converting food into fuel for mind boggling feats of speed and endurance. However, the strategy for feeding hunting dogs is hotly debated, and there’s a mountain of anecdotal evidence supporting a variety of techniques to achieve this common goal.

If making sense of canine supplements feels like an overwhelming and confusing endeavor, you’re certainly not alone. Over the past decade, the canine supplement market has seen exponential growth along with a sharp rise in popularity among hunting dog enthusiasts.

For decades, veterinarians have uniformly promoted early spay and neuter as a solution to managing the pet population. While effective at controlling unwanted pregnancies and preventing some reproductive diseases, this strategy brings its own unique set of consequences that are seldom discussed with dog owners.