daleh

Bird Dogs have a specfic job, To Find Birds on the ground.
Retrievers have a specfic job, To Retrieve downed birds.

There is no way that a Pointer or a Setter will everbe abetter retriever than a Lab for water fowl or Doves.
On the Same Hand, A Lab will never be a good as a Pointer or Setter at findingUpland Game Birds.
Each Breed of Dog has a specfic purpuse. Some are Versital and others are not.
Alot of Dogs have been altered over the yearsthroughselective breeding.
Irish Setters = almost completly ruined by the AKC by breeding for looks. Today most hunting Irish Setters have a small streak of white
From breeding to English Setters to put more drive and bird sense into a hunting breed that was almost lost.
GSP= bred to English Pointers to put more run and drive for field trials you can see this as so many GSPs are almost completly white.
English Pointers= bred to walker hounds to put more stamina and run in back in 60s when Setters dominated the sport
English Setters= bred to pointers ro make Setters more competive in FeildTrials in the 70s and 80s
Brittanys= bred to Setters to give them an edge in trials as well

MA Jay

Dale-

I have to think you just don't get out very much into the field if you think what you wrote above is an absolute "fact". I admit that as a generality Pointer and Setters are better upland hunters than Labs, but I know and have hunted with DOZENS of "labs" that were far better hunters and upland dogs than some Pointers and Setters I have seen in the field. I have also seen Setter's and Springers retrieve waterfowl far better than a lot of Labs. Dogs are as different from each other within breed as people.

Instead of trying to fire up people stating thatsome breeds aren't good upland hunters... maybe spend a little time working dogs for the upcoming season?

Phil from Maine

Dale, Todays Irish have some white but NOT from the English
Setter but from the original Irish the Irish Red and White Setter
There is a cross with English known as the Red Setter and are
in no way the same as the Irish Setters in looks at all. It is
because of the show and the new breedings that are making the
Irish Setter even harder to get today. As with all good breeds they
have to be protected too. As IMO there is nothing like owning a
real Irish Hunting dog. Here is a pic. of an Irish/Red and
White cross.





If you go back into the early days of the Irish Setter alot
of them had a small bit of white in them. That was
discourage back then but not anymore as the ancestors
are in fact the Irish Red and White Setters. And the Irish
Red and Whites do in fact have the drive. And these old
style Irish also have the drive.

Mite

Here are a few corrections: Brittanys were not bred to setters to compete in field trails, they derived from the same spaniel back in the early 1500s.

Setters were not bred to pointers. You can get any good setter line like tomoka, tekoa, ryman, etcand trace it back to the early 1900's. I have a Llewellin and studied setter history. My dog has ancestry can be traced to 1880's back to the Duke-Lavarek-Rhoebe cross from England.

If there were cross breeding, then it was done under auspicious circumstances and hidden from the various registries. Hence, it was not widely done.

Also, posting such a post will geteveryone's hackles up. We are here to discuss various aspects of differing breeds, help people out, and ask questions and NOT aboutstirring everyone up.

Phil from Maine

Amen to that

camelcluch

I just had this conversation lat night. A guy told me, "labs aren't good in the field." Now , I have hunted with great labs and chessies. I can say that a good labs can do everything a pointer does. It's a matter of prefrence. I like retievers, but I do think that pointers are good at hunting. Check put Shadow Mountain and Black Forest Kennels out of Colorado. The blood lines and titles should tell you something.

tatonka

All we really know in regards to how the various breeds were developed is what we read or what someone tells us. Who really knows what dogwas bred to who "out behind the barn"? I've heard a lot of what Dale is saying many times in regards to various breeds being bred to other breeds (such as German Shorthairs being crossed with Pointers). I've heard that some of our Field-Bred Springer lines were crossed with Llwellin Setters in Great Britain years ago to "give them more leg and improve their noses". Is this true? I have no idea. It really doesn't matter to me..... I think it all adds a little mystique to the history of the various breeds.

In regards to retrievers and bird dogs, most breeds are somewhat of a comprimise but most of us cannot own several different breeds to meet the specific needs of the different game we hunt. So, sometimes we sacrifice a little on the retrieving end for a nice point, and vice versa.

AlaskaMagnum

www.vdd-gna.org


They point, they retrieve on land and water feather or fur, they blood track, they dispatch vermin, they have a pretty much maintenence-free, light-shedding coat, and they will nail your ass to the wall if you come into their house late in the night.


Are they a Miller-type, stylish runnin pointer - nope. Will they take a blind out to 400 yards and hold a line -- nope. Can you hunt geese in the morning, pheasants at noon, and then go blood track your buddies too-far back-hit deer. Yep. I don't consider them a compromise.

tatonka

"Comprimise": Depends on what a person's priorities are I suppose. I'm with you for the most part.....if a dog can get the job done for me, there's nothing to comprimise. My Chessies and Springers "get r done" just fine for the hunting I do.A hard flush and a great retrieve are just as perty to me as an Elhew Pointer locked up on point. I suspect most of us prefer a "Jack of all Trades, Master of none" type of dog.

Mite

Nope. The springer and brittany and what we know today as the setter derived from a spaniel long ago. The setter and brittany carry somewhat closer roots around the 1500's. The history is not very well known because dogsthen where referred to the place they originated (like the Northcumberland spaniel) and owners did not keep strict records. It was not until the mid-1800s when registries started recording pedigrees and when they started labelling specific breeds.

But on another note: the springer is traditionally a flushing dog whereas the setter is a pointing dog.

As to Llewellins, when I say known history, I mean specific pedigreehas been recorded in the FDSB registry since 1880s. I could order the actual blueprint of my dog's sire and dam, grandsire and granddam, etc. all the way back to Count Noble who was the first Grand National Champion and who is now 'resting' in the National Bird Dog Museum. Llewellin's are also DNA tested prior to giving birth or they can't be registered. (They also have Count Noble DNA signature to compare it too.)

Personally, I only hunt upland birds. I don't hunt deer, waterfowl, etc. anymore so, when choosing a dog, I choose one with a longhistory. Partlybecause of nostalgia, partly because I grew up with setters and that's why I love them so much.