RE: Bird Dog Training
Mine cost $400.00 a month in addition to birds. Likely they will want you to send your dog back for further training after you have hunted with it for a season. It is worth the money.
Take into account what you want your dog to do when picking a trainer. Dog trainers tend to be more expensive when training for competition due to the time involved. Dogs trained for field competition will cost a lot more than a dog trained for the hunter. In other words how polished do you want your dog to be and how willing are you to keep up the regiment established by the trainer. A dog can come back from the trainer and perform outstanding but after a season of hunting with little reinforcment the dog likely will lose its polishing and behave like an average hunting dog who has not had that much trainning.