First let me say Congratulations on getting a dog! Second I see you are relatively new here so welcome to the forum, it is a great place to get information you just have to weigh what everyone says and formulate your own opinion.

If you have the patience and desire to train the dog yourself I say go for it. There is nothing better than working hard to train your dog and then seeing the dog perform well in the field. If you are going to do it yourself you should know it is going to be a commitment work with the dog at lease once if not twice a day for about 10 to 15 min. Anything longer and you will see the dog lose interest. Also if you plan on doing some training yourself I suggest you get yourself some books, purchase them as opposed to checking them out from the library or borrowing them from a friend. If you purchase them then you will always have them to refer back to. I would like to suggest the following books:


Gun Dog by Richard A. Wolters a book, written in the earlier 1960's I think, that is IMO the pointing dog training bible. It is still printed and has stood the test of time. I believe it was a revolutionary training book that is in part the basis for most modern training methods when it comes to pointing dogs.

Tarrant Trains Gun Dogs: Humane Way to Get Top Results by Bill Tarrant
Bill Tarrant was a gun dog writer and editor for Field and Stream and very knowledgeable about dog training. Also he wrote several other books of which I have not read, however, I am sure they would be worth ones time to read and purchase as well


Now the two books I have suggested will contradict one another from time to time but the basics are similar. Wolters suggests a more hard hands approach then Tarrant as the title of Tarrant's book suggest. I don't believe in adopting just one training method because your dog will don't always conform and it is good to have other methods to draw from to get your dog to where you want it to be.

Keep us updated and let us know when you get your dog and what you decide to do