Free: Contests & Raffles.
Reality of the whole my breed, your breed thing is that a dog is only as good as the exposure and quality of training it has received. And the owners who feel their dog is the best in the world only know what they have seen and had for exposure to trained dogs. Pointer, retriever, pointing retriever, hairy or smooth....they're only as good as their genes and training allow. And, as I teased Richard before in this thread about trying to get him and other pointer guys at a pointer field trial to battle it out with my old Chesapeake bitch in the pointer bird field, it was my front yard at the time which was also used as the pointer HT and trial bird field. My bitch got to clean up hundreds if not thousands of left over birds after every pointer HT and trial. No way, no how anyone walking on the property with a dog could find more than her. Not a chance in hell. It was her yard and she knew where the birds went. They don't forget. That brings me to my comment to bring experience into the discussion. My old bitch couldn't be beat in her front yard by any pointer anywhere in the world. It was her front yard, she knew where to find the birds and how to find them fast. This is the same with any dog who is experienced wherever that experience might be. It could be that guide you paid in NoDak with a shorthair on grouse. The dog does it every day in the same places. Birds are found in the same places on the same property no matter if they are wild or pen raised. The guys who go boasting they train on the same "wild" ground day in day out blah blah blah... when you go hunt in SoDak and Nodak(or the guys that train there) the wild birds get found in the same spots day in day out because like fishing, there are fishy spots, birdy spots ect. Birds have habits, birds are in certain places they like, dogs and humans alike learn to find those spots pretty quick. Dog learns how to work birds fast. That's the easiest part in the entire world of dog training. *censored*, if the dog likes a feather you can teach it to work a bird. If you're pheasant hunting, do you hunt the disced corn or, hunt the plot of millet with a rim of wind break trees with tumbleweeds all piled up against it? Dogs with half an acorn of a brain figure that out.
We also need to be more consistent with out training.....
Hayden:PPs will drop hair but not anywhere near what a lab does. The thing with PPs is that they have hair and not fur so they don't produce the allergens that other dogs do. As for waterfowl hunting, PPs are excellent waterfowl dogs. They are very hearty in the cold weather, I hunt mine when he is breaking ice on retrieves and he sits like a statue watching for birds. Bob farris with Cedarwoods is a top notch breeder. I know Bob well and he knows how to pair the right breeding with the right person.