An active dog with alot of running room normally would keep a dog calmed down once the dog had a chance to run it off some.

For as far as shedding keep in mind fur and hair, fur is the thick hair underneath that creates most of the shedding problems in dogs.

Question # 2 is a hard one as you will need to keep the dog trained up in most cases. Some breeds do remember better than other breeds so they can retain it better and that means less training time when getting ready to hunt.

For as far as size most breeds have pups that can and will very in size from big to small. I have the Irish Setters and I sold a pup to a friend that hunted several dogs in the past. He also raised the English Setter and pointers for a while. His first hunting dog was an Irish Setter that was more like my male. When he got my female pup from he became very impressed with it. It was very small for an Irish he thought as it road around on the dashboard of his truck when working. He worked for Federal Express and took the pup everywhere. He stated he never saw a dog so birdy before and at full grown the Irish wieghs in at 28lbs. So one needs to concider exactly what they want and then check the dogs out for size as well as hunting ability.

Ps I tried to post sooner but had trouble logging on....