Hi all,
I grew up on a farm where we raised English pointers and GSP's. It's been 16 years since I have trained a hunting dog. Anyways, our family dog finally passed after 17 great years and I wasn't even thinking about a new pup but I ended up taking in a 7 week old pup on a whim. This pup's dad is an AKC registered chessie who is a duck hunting machine. The bitch is an AKC registered yellow lab that is a very solid upland game retriever. This was not some silly designer doggy breeding. This was a big mistake.
I got this dog to be a good family pet but I can't help myself from wondering if this dog may be worth some field training. I know it's early but she sure shows some good early traits. Any thoughts on training a bird mutt?
Anyways, I love the posts in this forum and have been lurking for a while,
Cheers

Just as with "pure bred" hunting dogs, the answer is in the genetics.....did those genes get passed on? There are quite a few "pure bred" hunting dogs that don't hunt, either because the traits just didn't get passed along, or they were selectively bred for (i.e. the breed became popular and people were looking to make a fast buck and just indiscriminatley producing puppies for the pet trade....the Irish setter is a good example).
As a kid, my grandfather had a dog that was half labrador/half English springer spaniel. Both dogs came from hunting bloodlines, and Brutus had a lot of potential....he became a fair hunting dog on his own, and would have been a great hunting dog (IMHO) if someone had bothered to give him some training!
If your pup shows promise, I would suggest looking at "Game Dog" or "Water dog" by Richard Wolters (Sorry, but I don't know what you intend to hunt). Being from two retriever breeds, my suggestion would be to look at books that train flushers/retrievers.
Anyway, that's the advice I have to offer. Good luck with your pup...........

Good looking dog Shrapnel. Looks like he knows what he's doing.
Yeah 16, you read my mind. I dug out Game Dog last night and started re-educating myself. I know some don't like Wolters but I 've always thought it was a good place to start. I'll keep posting any progress.
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Cute pup!! Those are definetely chessie eyes....bore a hole right through yah!
...yes, a lot of people don't like Wolters, but all I can say is I used his methods on my dogs (1 water spaniel, 2 chessies, and a lab), and they all turned out to be pretty good hunting dogs.
Please keep us posted on your progress...........

Years ago, before all of the boutique breeding started, I hunted over a shorthair/chessie accidental cross... The dog had loads of ability and nose, but required a pretty heavy hand to keep him in check...
More so than most chessies i've known...

There's absolutely no reason to think this pup can't make a great hunting dog.

First dog I hunted over was a mix of english setter, beagle and ? He would flash point quail and bust cover for bunnies. My buddy and I were around 14 at the time . The dog would run along side our bikes for a couple of miles to the farms that we could hunt and then run back home when we were finished. A fantastic dog. He also treed a few raccoons.