Never seen a good pointing dog that needed its pointing instinct "developed". They either point or they don't, the training takes place from there. The Hunt Test standard is a pretty good measure of what a lab is supposed to be able to do. Breeding them to run lions would be no less of a deviation than is breeding them to point and then registering them with the dogs that do the traditional lab job of a flushing retriever. The bench crowd is what ruined the Irish Setter by breeding them without regard for their ability to be pointing dogs, much the same as the backyard breeder has destroyed most lines of Golden Retrievers.
