Age to send Puppy to Training

[Happy Gilmore]

Nothing said here isn't also true of retrievers. Too much pressure early and they are sulky little *censored*s and lose all their style. My 7 month old puppy is doing multiple marks and stretching out to 200-300 yards. just starting handling in yard work. She is a heat seeking missile. I force fetched her right at about 6 months not because of age but maturity and desire for birds. It is a balancing act and reading a dog, regardless of breed is the key.

I've personally worked with pointers and retrievers. Dogs are dogs.

Train the dog, not the breed. If you think you know a breed really well and can make generalizations about it, you simply haven't been around enough of them and are still novice.

[jetjockey]

Regardless of what anyone tells you.  In trials, you can run AKC Pointing dogs as puppies until 15 months old, and Derby until 24 months old.  Let that be your guide when people start telling you they can train your pointing dog at 6-7 months old. 

[Happy Gilmore]

I consider puppy training to be simple obedience and bird exposure for any brand of bird dog

[jetjockey]

There's no reason to pay a pro for that as its not formal training.  Anyone can introduce a pointing dog to birds and teach "whoa" and "here" in about 5 minutes a day.   

[Ruger]

I would agree, I already taught whoa and here...
That is no problem at all, but having a place to everyday be able to have touches on birds is the obstacle.

[jetjockey]

You don't need touched every day.  Every couple weeks is probably ole th at this age.  All your doing is building confidence and letting the dog have fun. 

Out if curiosity, what do you want from the dog?  Do you want a fully broke dog that is FF'd, broke, collar conditioned, and fully finished?  Or is a dog that's broke to wing that may or may not retrieve be OK?  Also, what's the dog like?  Is it an All Age field trial bred dog that will be comfortable at 500+ yards, or is it a foot bred dog that will rarely push 100 yards and not need as much handle trained into it?  These are all questions you will want to ask yourself, and the trainer you pick to train the dog.