I'm on my way home after a few days running dogs at summer camp in SD. Bird numbers look pretty good so far this year. We had pheasant, sharptail, and chicken finds, and even came across last years left over bob whites that a few Pro's put out. IMO there really is no better way to make a bird dog than lots and lots of birds, and that's exactly what SD offers. The young dogs typically get trained on pheasants, and then the older dogs get put into the prairies where they are run on sharptail and chickens. We had a TON of bird work in the three days I was at camp, and some good and bad dog work! "Bowling for birds" was the theme of the young dogs, but they were having fun and getting it figured out.