No arguments or pissing matches, please...
and i'll own up to being both low-rent, and lucky, in bird dogs...
most of my best performing dogs were free, or nearly so. but then, my house probably cost less than most guys' pickup trucks... (and my pickup probably cost less than some guys dogs
)
i'm not ignorant of breeding, and it's relationship to health, behavior, or ability issues, but like i said, i've been lucky... and i feel like i can fairly well judge dogs when i get a chance to observe them...
all of the dogs i've raised and trained have been flushers or retrievers. my last retriever seemingly taught himself to point. this might have been in response to my own walking speed, which my buddies refer to as being "as fast as a speeding fencepost"...
i have hunted over most of the more common bird dog breeds, though... this would include the pointer, the english setter, the shorthair, draahthaar, brittany, vizla, weimar, labs, chessies, and springers/cockers...
i'd like to hear about different breeds regarding their family/home tendencies... my last dog that was strictly a kennel dog, was also the dog that i paid the most for. she had the heart and talent of a champion. and she was stolen while i was at work, the week before Christmas, during her first season...
the best family dog that we had was a female chessie. came to us as free as dirt... she was as healthy, behaviorally stable, and as exuberant a hunter as any guy could want. and she was the ultimate family dog... my oldest son learned to walk while hanging onto her lip...
rio was polite, if reserved around strangers... and still protective towards the family... she's the reason my wife is agitating for another chessie now...
best bird dog i ever owned was the yellow pointing lab mentioned above... we had him at the same time as rio, the chessie. they were a great pair...
to me, shorthairs are high strung and spastic, anywhere but in the field... most are huge runners who are hard to break from self hunting, once they're a ways from their handler...
But the all time best dog i ever hunted behind was a shorthair... she was a 3 year old pound dog when a buddy got her... by the time she was 5 he was guiding with her. she was spayed, and 8 years old when a client wrote a check for $10,000 for her... my buddy turned down the check... she hunted til she was 13 years old...
draahthaars are great bird dogs, but simply are not family dogs... at least the ones that i've known...
weimars much the same as draahthaars, and it's not that they're poorly behaved around kids, but that they are so attached to their hunter that they can't take being separated... one buddy couldn't go to work for 8 hours without the dog sitting at the window and yowling it's head off. his wife and kids about went crazy...
i've hunted over some very good english setters... but they picked up burrs like velcro...
and i've hunted over some great pointers... really great pointers... but i wouldn't consider any of them a family dog...
and the Vizla... the best i hunted over was a pretty fair dog... but most of them haven't impressed me with nose, ability, or drive...
please tell me about your dog experiences as relates to both hunting and family friendliness...
