Hunting Dogs

In January/February I discussed the challenges involved in choosing the right flushing and/or retrieving dog. This time I will discuss pointing breeds.
    When deciding on the right pointing breed, the decision can be difficult. It’s like going into a collector’s wine cellar and picking out a wine: There are so many great ones that it’s a shame to be limited to only one. In sticking with the wine analogy, there are great Cabernet Sauvignons, Burgundys, Beaujolais, Montrachets, Mersaults and Rieslings. There are great wines from California, France and Italy. The lists go on and on. Such is the case with pointing breeds. There are so many varieties of pointing breeds that there’s sure to be one to meet anyone’s tastes and preferences.
    In choosing a pointing dog, it’s wise to identify the type of hunting conditions in which the dog will most often be expected to perform. Some breeds, such as pointers, will handle the rigors of hot weather better than others. Some breeds have more stamina and endurance. The dog that may be suitable for less-intense outings at the local hunting preserve may not cut the mustard on a full-day quail hunt in Texas. Some breeds will withstand the rigors of cold-weather hunting and chilly waters. There are breeds that are specialists, while others are more versatile. There are breeds that are innately better trackers and retrievers, while others are better air-scenters.
    You should consider where the dog’s living quarters will be. Is the dog going to live in the house when not coursing through the coverts, or will it be kenneled outside? If the dog’s accommodations will be outside, will it be subjected to cold, snowy conditions? Proper kennel design will help protect a dog from the extremes of climate, but a wirehair with a thick undercoat is better equipped for winter than a shorthair.
    Aesthetics influence the decision for many dog enthusiasts, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. An individual may opt for a Gordon setter, Irish setter or English setter simply because of looks. Another owner may view a Brittany, Braque du Bourbonnais, German shorthair, vizsla, spinone, Weimaraner, griffon, Drahthaar (German wirehaired pointer) or pudelpointer as a “10” in the beauty department. I think that any dog that finds birds, handles in control and exhibits proper manners around birds is beautiful. A purple dog that quested hard and held point would give me goose bumps. But that’s just me. For me, it’s all about finding birds and the point. The more stylish and intense the point, the higher a dog scores in my beauty pageant.
    One of the first decisions a hunter must make is whether his pointing dog is going to hunt upland birds exclusively, or whether it will be expected to retrieve ducks as well. If a dog’s duties are going to include both upland and waterfowl hunting, then the versatile breeds are the ticket. The griffon, pudelpointer, Weimaraner, Drahthaar, shorthair, spinone, and vizsla are all considered versatile breeds. In this case versatility means that the dog will hunt for upland birds as well as perform water retrieves. This is not to say that a Brittany, for example, can’t be trained to bring back a puddle duck, but that breed is not as genetically prepared to do so. All of the versatile breeds will serve double duty in the blind as well as the field, but they are not specialists. Versatile breeds generally will not be as good at waterfowling tasks as Labs, for example. And although versatile breeds can perform very well on upland birds, they are not the specialists that English pointers are. (Please hold the hate mail.) By the same token, pointers are not good dogs to take sea duck hunting.
    The pointing Lab, in my opinion, falls into the versatile-dog category. The pointing Lab should quest for upland birds and retrieve in the water. The limitation of pointing Labs is that Labs have been bred to retrieve for hundreds of years. I have Labs, but they’re not pointing Labs; they are flushing Labs. I use them for flushing upland birds as well as for waterfowling. Genetically, the pointing instinct in Labs is not as strong as it is in dogs that have been bred for eons to point. There are certainly Labs that point and retrieve, but in general they will not be as easy to get to hold point with style and train to be steady to wing & shot. On the other hand, in most cases they will require less training to hunt close. Pointers have been bred to find game and point; Labs are marking specialists.
    So if a versatile dog seems like the right choice for you, which breed is best? This is akin to asking what type of red wine is best. It depends on personal tastes—with some practical reasoning factored in. All of the dogs mentioned should be expected to not only hunt upland birds but also make water retrieves. The Drahthaar and griffon are better suited to cold-water conditions than shorter-haired breeds like German shorthairs, Weimaraners and vizslas. Therefore, if I lived in Maine and was going to hunt ducks as well as grouse, I’d opt for a Drahthaar or griffon. The spinone has a curly coat but is not the same athlete as the Drahthaar, griffon, shorthair or vizsla.
    In the uplands the shorthair and vizsla have an advantage in my opinion. In fact, one of the best pheasant dogs I have ever hunted over was a female vizsla named Indy. Vizslas and shorthairs are very stylish runners and are at home in the pheasant coverts of the Midwest and West, and when conditioned properly they have more endurance. The Weimaraner’s hunting genes have been negatively affected by show-dog breeding, although a friend of mine in North Carolina has two very nice Weimaraners and does a lot of duck hunting and quail hunting. These dogs come from hunting stock, and though they are not the specialists in water like Chessies or on land like pointers, they bring back the bacon. If a Weimaraner is your dog of choice, make sure it comes from a family tree of hunters and not show dogs. There also can be some temperament problems with some lines of Weimaraners. Do not buy any dog bred for show if you are hoping for a great hunter.
    The versatile breeds are normally better trackers and retrievers than the upland specialists. But sometimes a dog’s good points are also its bad points. Versatile dogs have a tendency to put their noses to the ground. The higher a dog carries its head when running, the farther away it can smell a bird. The versatile breeds have more of a tendency to trail rabbits, raccoons and other critters that leave ground scent. Tracking can get in the way of pointing. For me, it’s about the point. The quality of the pudelpointers, shorthairs, vizslas and Drahthaars I’ve worked with in my training schools has improved substantially during the past decade. Typically these breeds have exhibited strong pointing and hunting instincts and would make good personal gundogs. Drahthaars can act a bit “tough,” and if your neighbors have cats there may no longer be an exchange of Christmas cards. However, the Drahthaar is resilient and generally forgiving of an owner’s mistakes in training.
     Now it is time for me to go out on a limb and name my top choices among versatile dogs. If I were to do a lot of duck hunting as well as upland hunting, I would choose a Drahthaar; if I lived in warmer climates, did not ask my dog to handle cold water and focused more on upland hunting, my choice would be a vizsla or shorthair. Because of a larger gene pool and more well-bred dogs being available, I would go with a shorthair.

This brings me to the specialists: the dogs that have been bred exclusively to find game and point. The English setter and English pointer are at the top of this heap. There are certainly great individuals from other breeds that put on blue-ribbon performances, but in general English setters and pointers are the most consistent. The red setter, Irish setter and Gordon setter simply do not have large-enough gene pools and numbers of quality breedings to stack the odds in the buyer’s favor.   The Llewellyn setter is a line of English setters, and in order to register a dog as a Llewellyn the dog must be DNA tested due to some questionable breeding practices in the past. If an English setter is the dog of choice, it is extremely important to select one from field-trial parentage and not show lineage. Field setters and show setters are entirely different animals. One line hunts; the other is limited in the questing and pointing departments. Watching a genetically talented English setter course through the grouse coverts and stand tall on point is a thing of beauty. An English setter from top field lines normally does very well at finding birds, and I have had many a great day hunting over this breed.

The English pointer is now registered simply as “pointer” by The American Field. That says it all: pointer. The pointer points. No breed of dog demonstrates more point or exhibits the pointing instinct at an earlier age. The more point a dog has, the easier it is for an owner to get the dog to hold point. The pointer is metabolically unique among gundog breeds in that it uses its fat resources more efficiently. This equates to more stamina and endurance. In my opinion the pointer is the easiest dog to train, is the most forgiving of mistakes in the bird field, and is a dream to have around the house. The old rap about pointers being aloof resulted from the dogs not being as well socialized at an early age as typical companion dogs were. A well-bred pointer is levelheaded, tends not to be a barker, trains easily and loves to hunt.
    There are truly great English setters, and they are beautiful to look at. But when I see a pointer standing proud, its nostrils sucking in every bit of scent, demonstrating intensity and style, well, the beauty pageant is over in my mind. The winner is the pointer.
    Whatever breed you ultimately gravitate to, select the best breeding you can find. Remember that all dogs are not created equal. Once you have selected a breed, select a line within that breed. Health issues are important, although performance breeds have fewer health problems than other breeds.
    My good friend Bob Reynolds of Doctor’s Park Veterinary Clinic, in Canfield, Ohio, has won the National German Shorthair Championships and is a leading breeder of shorthairs. Bob is also a consulting vet for us, and he has some good advice: “After 39 years of observing puppies and seeing them grow up and grow old, I feel that breeds that are used for physical performance tend to have healthier individuals because their rigorous exercise and lifestyle bring many physical faults to the attention of the breeder early on, and these individuals are deleted from the breeding program of that line.
    “Testing for hip dysplasia, von Willebrands disease, progressive retinal atrophy and other genetic testing now offer the reputable breeder many options to produce genetically sound puppies. As more genetic disease problems are solved, we will be able to eliminate more of the diseases from the bloodlines of the breeds they affect.
    “I feel that the hunting breeds that I see that are still used for the purposes they were developed for tend to be free of many of the hereditary diseases that plague the other breeds. The most important aspect of purchasing a genetically healthy individual is knowing as much as possible about the health of the parents and grandparents as far back as possible in the bloodline that you are interested in purchasing.”

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