Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs Did the name change here?

Wasn't this called the Gun Dog forum? But now it's sporting dog? Why the name change?

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The change Is part of the Campfire DEI program. Gotta include air dogs and antler finders. Our strength is in our diversity. 🤔

….Are the dock diver and obstacle course runners sporting Dogs???

Tough call. A Sporting Woman, however, is something altogether different.

Do pit bulls qualify?

I mean they are a "sporting" breed

There's a lot of interesting dogs out there and if it gets more people talking about them and sharing their accomplishments, then I'm all for it.

Should they be required to hunt for the gun…. Or just be interesting?

Anybody's pictures of bird dogs would still be welcome I would think.
However, bird dogs are not the only interesting dogs out there although they should take precedence over others. After all, it is a hunting forum.
But maybe someone would like to see a picture of someone's Rat Terrier line up

Have to careful around sporting women….

Love terriers, have always had a soft spot for them.

Growing up on the farm, we always had a mix of terriers and terrier mixes. They were there to handle the rats as few of the barn cats wanted anything to do with a grown rat. Whenever an outbuilding was taken down or especially if burned everyone who could make it brought their dogs over to kill rats as the rats bugged out. The dogs got pretty tired and a bit chewed up those times. But they were pretty happy and proud to be doing what they were bred to do.

My first "hunting dog" was a Wirehaired Terrier/spaniel mix. She pointed birds on occasion but mostly flushed them. She was a pretty good at finding cripples too plus became a fair squirrel dog. She would go crazy with excitement when a gun was brought out even though she was incredibly gun shy.

To be fair, I don’t think hounds are considered Gun Dogs, even though lots of shooting happens in front of them. They’re a welcome topic at my campfire anytime. I guess that makes me a Sporting Dog guy.

Some of us know what a Gun Dog is or isn’t. If someone hunts with their Weiner Dog, it’s a Gun Dog and qualifies. If not it’s a pet.

Gun Dog has an historic definition, however some always want to change things to fit their personal feelings. Little difference than the AKC messing with the traditional hunting breeds and turning them into ring runners.

Perhaps the gun in Gun Dog is too offensive to some.

Maybe we need a PET forum, and then they will have a place to show their Parrots, Cats,, etc,etc….

Perhaps like FB we should be more inclusive and have a place for all.....so none are left out.

How about a non-working working dog forum?

I have a friend who hunts partridge over a Min Pin, she's a great little hunter and flushed as long as there is not too much snow!
I also know a guy with two Min Pins , they do not hunt .
Those two are pets, the first one is as much a gun dog as our Spanial and Munsterlander!
However, a person who owns an GSP for example and does not hunt it? As far as I am concerned it's a pet not a gun dog .
Cat

Perhaps we can have a hunting clothing forum...I guess some wouldn't find it odd for someone to post up about their skinny jeans....

I would guess that the change of the forum name from Gun Dog to Sporting Dog was done to be less narrow and more inclusive of other breeds and methods of hunting. Gun Dog has been a general term for pointing dogs for decades which was solidified by Richard Wolters using the term as the title for his classic book on training pointing dogs sixty some years ago. Before that, from the 1400's until the mid 1800's at least it was a general term for hounds (gunnae hounde/dogge in Middle English per some of the excerpts of "training" literature from the time I've been fortunate to have read) as quarry brought to bay by hounds were about the only game one was able to shoot with the firearms of the times. It wasn't until the advent of the percussion cap that shooting flying birds began to be practical on a wide scale basis.

Today, there are those trying to twist the definition again by trying to add other breeds and hunting styles to the term. Gun Dog Magazine is one of the worst offenders as they not only include retrievers and flushing dogs but also the occasional Airedale, feist, cur, and - shudder - Standard Poodle in their pages.

I have no problem with the name change, didn't care enough to have even noticed there was a change. If anything, it is a better fit as there are those who are broader minded in hunting with dogs than just using a gun. I also have no issue with those mentioning their use of non traditional breeds for hunting as I started with such a dog and have one now. I don't recommend going that route for a dedicated hunting dog but if the dog shows an interest in hunting then allowing it to do so can be amusing and fun with a chance of even being productive. And terriers are often fantastic hunting dogs even if their prey is not traditional quarry hunted with a gun. Turn them loose in an area that is rodent infested and you will see an intensity matched by few other breeds. Jack Russels are widely used for flushing rabbits and the like. I apprenticed to a Master Falconer who had a couple that he used with his goshawks and another falconer I know uses JRTs with his falcons.

If all my English Cockers went after were Groundhogs, I wouldn’t call them Gundogs. Same as if they flushed Game for a Falcon. I guess they may be a Raptor Dog. One thing I do know is the current widely accepted classification for Dogs that hunt for the gun is….Gundog. Although many use the generic Hunting Dog perhaps even more. A lot more.

Perhaps the Fire is on the cutting edge of a new modern day definition. One which, like so much today is more inclusive and diverse.

Now it’s “Hunting Dogs”!!!

Yes, it was changed a couple days ago. 🙄🤣

Gun dogs
Sporting dogs
Hunting dogs.


Let's just call it dogs, which is all we want to see anyways... we all love dogs of all kinds.

True. Except Afghan hounds. That is the one breed I have absolutely no love for.

Good God, those are ugly, useless looking things.

Should have left well enough alone…and left it Gun Dog. It had a definite exact description for a forum for hunting Dogs that are shot over in the field or water.

Someone must have whined.

Agreed, however I would be surprised if Rick gave in to such a childish complaint!

Well it went from loving all Dogs to calling one ugly and useless….

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Well from looking at where most of you are from, I doubt any of you even know what a gun dog is let alone sporting dog and most likely just have a dog around for just a pet. Who cares what name they give the dog forum.

Someone mentioned something about dogs being used to flush birds for a Hawk. Yeah the hawk is used instead of a gun and the dogs used for it are flushing breeds like Black lab, Chesapeake, golden lab ect. Still a gun dog no matter how they used for hunting. Dogs used for competition hunts are still gun dogs no matter how you look or don't look at it.

Many of you also own guns and that don't mean most of you are hunters, far from it actually.

So,
Insult, a little bit of opinion and then finish with another insult.

Thanks for that.

Afghan hounds one of the prettiest dogs out there. Smart and fast as the wind. Compare them to black lab they make the lab look like a turtle.

I don't believe I said or even implied Afghan hounds were unattractive, unintelligent, or slow (though it would be interesting to see how they would stack up against a lab in a swim). I just stated I had no love for them. I do have great admiration for many of the other sight hounds though as I was fortunate to have been able to spend two mornings chasing coyotes in Nebraska with greyhounds, hunted cottontails with the neighbor's whippets for a few years, and grew up with my grandfather's Irish, Russian, and Irish/Russian mix wolfhounds who actually were used for hunting wolves. I was just getting to an age to keep up to actually go wolf hunting when wolves were listed as endangered. By no means am I an expert on sight hounds but I do have a passing familiarity.

They not water dogs and not what they was designed or bred for. It be like me saying "I wonder how a Lab would stack up to a running walker chasing coyotes". Different breeds for different purposes. Take those stags you just talked about or even the wolf hounds, they bred for short chases. Compare them to a running walker they bred to run all day long. Also the stag guys run a coyote with the truck before they release the stags. Running walker jumps its own coyote and runs to catch all day. Not uncommon to put 52 miles on a running walker in a day, just way it is and what they bred for. I don't expect a lab to do that, so I don't hunt coyotes with one.

Stags= Grey hound, wolf hound, whippet and Afghans all in a stag's bloodline plus few other breeds. pure Afghans not built hardy enough to run coyotes but do well with open country fox and jackrabbits and small bodied game animals. And no, I do not have a Afghan.

Running walkers= they bred for brains, speed, grit, handling ability, endurance, and nose to just name a few traits. Every time you make a cross is to improve those traits or keep them and yes at times you can get a bad cross if you breed to wrong dog, then you have to sort of start over and get rid of the bad traits. You make a cross you have to have both male and female that produce dogs with good traits and cull out the bad [bleep]. The entire litter is what tells you what you got. Some guys tend to breed on the actions of just one dog and think they going to have nice litter of pups because they bred to another guy's top female. LOL it doesn't work like that.

My dog has over 100 retrieves on wild birds in 2024 so far, so Id say she qualifies as a gun dog. She will have 25-30 more retrieves this Sunday, as we are shooting pigeons again. Not bad for an Airedale.

Nice job on 100 retrieves. question is how many it didn't retrieve or even flush. Going to keep score got to include numbers from other side of the fence or means very little.

Shes young and in her first season, so I don't hold her to the standard of keeping negative score.

But, for the record she has failed to retrieve one duck on land (a big stinky Gadwall after a long grinding day of 13 other retrieves), and I think 4 or 5 in the water. She has retrieved every single pigeon, dove, and chucker I've shot with her, most on land but a few in the water as well. Some water retrieves she executes like a seasoned vet, others are like a dog in her first season (like she was). Considering water retrieves are kind of "off brand" for an Airedale, I think she's done an excellent job this early on in her hunting career.