Marysville to Rio Vista: a two-hour plan for your gun dog

Marysville, the Yuba County seat, has 12,726 residents and a median age of 33.7 (Census ACS 5-year 2024). It sits where the Feather and Yuba rivers meet, in the Sacramento Valley's rice and duck country.

What the drive looks like

Plan on about 112 minutes each way, which makes a round trip close to four hours behind the wheel. That is a long morning, so it helps to bring the dog to Richard once and let the work happen in Rio Vista.

Drive times are estimates from OpenStreetMap routing with no traffic, so add a cushion if you leave during a commute window. Google lists Richard's hours as 8 AM to 2 PM Monday and Wednesday through Sunday, closed Tuesday. Call first and he will tell you what time works for drop-off or pick-up.

Spenceville is your backyard training ground

Spenceville Wildlife Area covers roughly 11,900 acres in Nevada and Yuba counties. CDFW lists valley quail and dove hunting there and says training facilities and field trials for hunting dogs are available in designated areas. For a Marysville owner, that is a public place to keep a trained dog sharp between trips to the marsh.

Read the property's current rules on the CDFW page before you go, since access and dates change by season. A dog that has finished a program needs somewhere to keep hunting, and this one is close to home.

Clubs that use the foothills

The 2026 California calendar lists the Northern California Brittany Club and the Monterey Bay English Setter Club at Spenceville, so pointing breeds are a regular sight on that ground. Retriever owners will find the nearest listed events through the California hunt test calendar page and AKC Event Search. Dates change, so check them there rather than on a static page.

Which program fits

A young pointer or retriever can start in Puppy Camp at 5 to 7 months; a retriever then moves to the Basic Waterfowl Program, and a pointing breed comes back for the Formal Gun Dog Training once it is over a year old. Richard has trained dogs professionally since 2002 and added pointers and other upland breeds in 2013 at Blue Ridge Kennels, so both kinds of dog are part of his work.

In board-and-train, the dog stays with Richard instead of riding two hours each way for every session. Ask about handler lessons too, because the dog you take home only keeps its training if you can give the same cues.

Questions to bring to the call

• What age and breed is the dog, and what do you want it to do on opening day?
• Do you hunt ducks, upland birds, or both?
• What does Richard recommend for drop-off and pick-up from Marysville?
• Is a handler lesson a good fit when you pick the dog up?