Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs Discussion of Bird Dog Breeds

probably because most, like me in my 45 years of hunting behind bird dogs, have found so few shorthairs worth the time and effort...

a good shorthair is a great dog, though...

You said it right, if a good shorthair is a great dog, think what a great shorthair is?

all said in fun of course

I have hunted over some fine GSP's. None of them made me want one over a Brittany or English pointer. Nor has any turned my head and made me think of it as a duck dog. I personally would much rather have a good Springer over a GSP.

Quiet. If more would see a good English Springer do their thing the supply may dry up.

Hahaha.... Battue you know damn well those English Springs will flush birds out to about 30 yards. That is too far and without warning for the Pointer crowd!

I'm pretty happy with my wirehair, and she is great with the kids....My buddy has a Griffon and is to a good dog.....

When did I say they were not good dogs? There are a lot of good hunting breeds out there.

Shhh again. The without warning makes them often shoot on instincts and they end up hitting more.

If all this gets out I had better go get another Springer before the price goes up.

she around 5 pounds though you would never know it, she will take on any and all dogs that get near her.....other than my buddys' dogs......good friend also has a GSP and she plays with him just like she does Jake as well as my other friends boxer....

GSP's were originally intended to be a do it all hunting dog that was also good in the house with the family.....most the ones ive been around, other than the hyper puppy stage to an extent, are fine in the house with everyone....

My wifes parents bred wirehairs, so I have had a fair amount of field experience with them here and in SE Iowa. They are also NAVDHA members and used to hit the local circuit pretty hard with their dogs. In their breeding their wirehairs work slower and closer than most pointers, but they do not miss much. You have to work hard to break them from deer chasing, and a cat...any cat... is a dead cat if they get loose. They are pretty good with the family a couple of them are down right pathetic when their primary master leaves and they do not get to go with them. For dove season I carry my shotgun, but have limited out with as little as ten shots. Not because I am such a good wingshooter but because the wirehairs would find all of the cripples around the edge of the field and I would only have to top off the gamebag. Unlike most other pointers, wirehairs work cold water ducks, including my section of the frozen Chesapeake without complaint. They are not Chessy's but they will work right with several labs we have shared a bilnd with. I have shot doves, ducks (puddlers), geese, quail, grouse, pheasants, huns, and woodcock with them. They may not be "the best" at any of these tasks but they can do all of these things extremely well. Add blood trailing deer and their proective nature and they are a pretty good option for the hunter with a family and limited time to train. My brother inlaw has been hunting and living in SE Iowa for the last 30 years. Wirehairs are all he has needed for that time and god knows how many birds.

I like GSP's and finally got to pick up my first one when we moved back to this area 13 years ago. Charleigh will be 14 this December and has been a very good bird dog. She was a rescue that we took in when she was 11 months old and full of really bad habits. She was birdy as hell and could not wait to find the next covey. Her big running ways lasted for the first three years, until I got her to Iowa for the first time. Running hard all day long was no big trick for her. Bird densities, ofcouse were much higher so she did not have to range so far to find them. After the first day of endless fields and some busted birds she began to understand the game. By the end of the week she figured out when to hold and when to swing infront of the bird to push it back to me. She became a very good pheasant dog in short order. When we had our kids she became a nurse maid. She would come to get uss if one someone started to cry. She still stays right witht he kids if they walk into the woods and will not come bakc without them. She has been a good family dog, you just have to watch your food placement.
By year 6 I could hold her close with hand signals, even in big country and stop her with a wistle or call even if she was in hot pusuit of a non desireable animal. I ran her with setters, wirehairs, brittany's, and other shorthairs. She always held her own. She especially loved to go to the mountains to cool of and to look for grouse, and got pretty good at moving quietly and locking up at distance on spooky birds.
She was extremely small animal aggresive for the first 9 years of her life but that has passed as she as gotten older. I have never seen a dog with more drive to get to game...no mater what the cost. She left alot of pieces of herself in multiflora rose and smilax tangles just to retrieve a dove or quail that got hung up in the middle of a large thicket of that evil stuff...twice as much if the bird was still alive. She even took to woodcock without much ado. If I was closer to bigger bird cover and more birds another GSP would be pretty high on my list. As things are now, I will enjoy her last years and look for a pup with a slightly jaded eye to what my current needs are. Boykins have caught my eye as I hunted over them in SC for several years and they have done well enough in the upland that my trips out to see the BIL would not be wasted on them. And I can put them in the canoe and not take another bath. I swear Charleigh would laugh at me when she dumped us to go after ducks!!

Sorry to get long winded just some experiences for you from another source.

Very informative....I think every DD/Wirehair report says that those breeds are HELL on cats....

Anyone think this could be stopped with socialization from 8 weeks?? My wife would be more than just upset to have my new dog kill our cat(s).

Yes you can stop that in a minute if you do it as a pup.

been a dog man for 30 years, border collies on cattle, pointing labs before most folks had pointing labs, owned some brits, hunted over some shorthairs, if you pick based on the character of the parents you will do fine. Minus the obvious labs and chessies have difficulty in hot weather and running all day, but they will not stop. brits were a peasant dog and originally bred as a one dog for everything, some still do that well. Our current brit will trail wounded deer, find lost arrows, retrieve anything, bark at bears, do about anything. I heard a long time ago a man is Blessed who has a couple of good dogs in his life, I have had way more than that. the more time you spend with them, the more they will listen.

Interesting thred that pertty much proves one thing. The more experience you have with an individual from a certain breed that suits your needs, the more likely you will get another and will believe your breed the best. Just not so but still it works. I've had a couple Labs, several Springers a bunch of Shorthairs and Pointer's and now two Setter's. There were outstanding dogs in each breed and there were duffers. Most given a chance made great house dogs and family dogs. And I would never expect a Lab to compete with a pointer at the Pointer's game or a Springer in the springer's game. Neither expect any of those to really compete with the Lab at his game. I know a lot of guy's will tell you different but the truth is first they love their dog and second, what the dog does suit's them. I have never seen a finer young man than my own son nor have I ever seem finer bird dogs that a lot I have owned and the two I have now. I just don't delude myself that they are something they are not.

The idea that a Shorthair looks like it's leaning on a fence post is lost on me.



Tieh was a really good one and I've had quite a few really good one's. But I do have a favorite, Hannah. Her last hunting trip she was 13yrs old and I lost her at 16yrs. I never saw a dog that could seemingly create a bird where none were apparent like she could. I've also had some nice pointer's but the idea of a pointer that does not run huge is foreign to me.



Pete was as bad a bird dog as I ever owned. That means if I wasn't riding a horse, I wasn't hunting with him, or his dad and several brother's and sister's. Just don't have it in me to own another pointer at this point in my life, I'm getting old!

But I do have a couple of setter's that can send my blood pressure soaring now and again. But they are honest dogs so I don't mind if they do a bit of freelancing.





Anybody that doesn't think his dog is the best thing since sliced bred either has the wrong dog or simply doesn't deserve to own any dog.

The GSP in the top photo is the twin to my Jake. For a moment there I thought he was cheating on me.

As to the post about cats and DD/Wirehairs, my Jake will not tolerate a cat on the same planet with him. I have tried everything from the age of about 3 months when he killed his first one up until last month when he drug the wife ( who was walking him at the time ) down the road a ways. He simply accepts whatever the punishment he might receive for the chance to maul cat.

Don,

Good looking bunch you got there.

my GSP is good with cats but its likely cause i could not get him picked up on the day he needed picked up so my uncle went and grabbed him for me and kept him for a week until i could make the run to South Dakota......Jake spent the week playing with my uncles cat who was bigger than him at the time.....now everytime he sees a cat he thinks its his new best friend.....

would say if your worried bout how your dog may be around cats, introduce them to each other as soon as possible, as young as possible....

Keeping the record straight:

Im a Brittany guy. Most likely because I grew up with them. But for me, a dog has to be a good family dog, and a great hunting dog. IMO Brits are perfect for that. Some people think the Brit was breed to be a close working hunting dog, but I disagree with that. Its believed that Brits came from a cross between a Springer and an English setter, and then bred again to an English pointer. That doesn't sound like they wanted a close working dog to me. One thing about brits is there are tons of different varieties in the breed. Ive seen pictures of brits busting ice in the winter to make a retrieve, and Ive seen them run like the big running All Age pointers. If you want it, it seems like its available in the breed.

I grew up with stock dogs, then beagles, then a GSP, then another round of beagles, then a couple brits, then a lab, now a French Brit. I sort of think the perfect dog is different at different times. Kind of like that old young bull and old bull joke. I'm now to the point where I want to walk down to the field. I never had one that wasn't the perfect dog at the time. Even killed a few birds off my stock dogs as a kid. The GSP was a hunting machine. Had a friend with a Irish setter that was just a wonder. Hunted over Jack the about the same time I read 'Big Red.' Then there were a couple Gordons a friend had, they were classy. My brits were just the greatest buddies. The lab was a perfect companion and my best friend, but she requried good lungs and legs to keep up with her. Had a few friends with Lewelleins. They were big runners and covered ground.
I won't mention that I cussed at all of them, called them all boneheads, promised every one of them that I would sell them to a rendering plant, chased everyone of them at least once across all the bird cover I wanted to hunt while they ran around like idiots, and I don't think one of them passed up a rotten carcass to roll in. Nearly all of them had a least one bird in that little clump of no cover that I dragged them away from two or three times, before the bird flushed and made me look stupid. They all proved the point that the stupidest bird dog knows a lot more than the smartest bird hunter.
Bfly