Reality is most folks don't have access to whatever wild birds they want to hunt without some serious effort.

I agree with this statement and feel fortunate I am not one of those folks.

Training and bringing the dogs along are with pen birds for a large majority nowadays I gotta believe.

I agree with this also, I will use toss down birds on this pup, but she will also get her chance to grow and learn on the real thing.

The transition to wild birds is in the hands of the pup owner, not in the hands of the breeder is what I am getting at.

Agree and Disagree, if your buying from a proven line of wild birds dogs; buying a dog from a Chukar hunter and you plan to hunt Chukars, then I agree 100% with this notion.

But I don't agree completely, notice I said completey, what you can't measure by buying from a kennel/breeder without piles of wild bird experience is the composure/evaluation the dog will have around wild birds, and the drive/bottom/mental toughness to hunt all day with very few contacts in a variety of conditions.

The preserve dog(s), Hunt Test Kennel, rarely go 10 minutes without a contact and don't hunt in the extremes of different cover that the wild bird dogs does over the course of a season. This IMO is what separates the best wild bird dogs from the balance of hunting dogs/HT dogs, and why you will never convince me that there is a saturation point of preserve birds that will retard a dogs ability to handle the real thing, not just in handling birds properly for the gun, but in the mental capacity to do so.

I had this exact conversation with perhaps the finest gun dog pro in Michigan last night; Tom Prawdzik's private book indicates that he had little use for setters that could do it when everything was right but struggled when it was wrong; he wanted a dog that could do it when the going got tuff, when the weather was wrong, when bad bird years happened.

With that said, I think you can make smart buys from folks who are not hard core wild bird hunters by evaluating the consistency in hunt test titles, trials, conformation,ect. I also believe some of the "drive" and "bottom" "pressure" "trainability" to achieve consistent passess and placements tends to indicate the dog has the mental capacity to transitioin as Frank says to an owner "whose job is to expose the dog to wild birds, beyond the breeders responsibility."

Just some of my thoughts.

I should have said mostly on the new pup owner as to exposure, good thoughts Fritz .

I recall being out running the dogs ( an actual hunt ) on Grouse a couple seasons back, ran pups, ran Rondo then ended with Gator.
Had a kennel owner along that breeds Labs, but was not too big on the PL thing it seemed, not sure.

It was a tuff scenting day and very windy, extra skittish birds. G would stop at scent start the tracking/ trying to get the direction, then if he did well the location... the birds were moving and very hard to pin down that day.
At one point she asked why he would not hold point and kept breaking point etc. I said the birds are running he is being as careful as I have seen him. I let my dogs relocate,I trust them. He did pin a few that we actually got to see locked down way out front, and that is rare.

I really don't think his work was appreciated much that day, but to me it was quite a show. Different strokes for different folks as the old song goes.

Posted By Paco on 18 Jul 2011 09:09 AM
I should have said mostly on the new pup owner as to exposure, good thoughts Fritz .

I recall being out running the dogs ( an actual hunt ) on Grouse a couple seasons back, ran pups, ran Rondo then ended with Gator.
Had a kennel owner along that breeds Labs, but was not too big on the PL thing it seemed, not sure.

It was a tuff scenting day and very windy, extra skittish birds. G would stop at scent start the tracking/ trying to get the direction, then if he did well the location... the birds were moving and very hard to pin down that day.
At one point she asked why he would not hold point and kept breaking point etc. I said the birds are running he is being as careful as I have seen him. I let my dogs relocate,I trust them. He did pin a few that we actually got to see locked down way out front, and that is rare.

I really don't think his work was appreciated much that day, but to me it was quite a show. Different strokes for different folks as the old song goes.

Was she, by any chance, a proponent of "stop at first scent" training/bird work, do you know? Or perhaps just didn't know anything about pointing dog bird work?

Jere

The answer is likely your second question Jere.

Which if you think about it, is one of the big hurdles for some first time PL ( Labs that happen to point) owners to get their heads around, it certainly was for me.
I learned a bunch from the dog, with good help along the way from folks more wise than me (meaning most)......and still have a lot to learn.

There are a bunch of "pointing dog" folk who believe in "stop at first scent." Arguments rage over that. I'm of the school that feels the dog has to work it out with the birds to be optimally productive. I suspect, were sufficient data gathered, it would reveal the trained to "Stop at first scent" dog has more unproductives and failed relocations than the naturally developed dog. I call the rare naturally stopping at first scent dog a 10+ on the point scale (pathological pointer.)

Jere

I had one of those pathological pointers Jere and may have told you about her.....She drove me nuts and was near useless as a hunting dog. Won a few big derby trials with her and was offered some big bucks for her. Should have sold her, I quit the trial games and she was 3rd string at best as a hunting dog.

You'd let her out and she'd go on point. Release her and she'd run maybe 50yrds and point again.....every once in a while she might actually find a bird, but most often it was a whole lot of false pointing and real pain in the rear.

Yep I didnt want to argue the fact with Hooli, But i was hunting with a guy that had a nice GSP that pointed on first scent, while Jake worked the birds, I did good while he produced false ponts and a few hens..... I sure dont want them pointing on first scent, i want the dog to work the scent to his advantage that will produce a bird.........

Good heavens, Kevin! You know lots more than me, and I am certainly not trying to argue, I come here to learn stuff like everyone else. Just now I learned that I used yet another term incorrectly My dogs "get birdy" when they catch a whiff of a bird-once they know where the bird is, they point. So, I guess that is not "pointing on first scent" or whatever I said above. But, you guys got good discussion out of it and I learned something, so that's ok too. I think I just got really, really spoiled with a talented dog who just gets it done and lets me watch