were can i get birds such as quail for my dog in the illinois area??

Personally, I wouldn' t use quail as INITIAL training birds -- if your pup catches a quail, it will probably turn into a meal -- that can turn into bad news later on.

Chukars are better (check at your local " Farm & Feed" store - or do a Search online). Once Chukars are accostomed to ' home' they will recall like quail.

Carded pigeons also work pretty good.

How come you didn' t reply (answer) to my questions to you on the PL forum?

o yeah sorry..things have been a little hectic lately..i just posted this becuase i feel my dog is ready for birds i dont know to much on retrieving the bird i am not shure if she will bring the bird back to me or if she will just try to take off with it..someone said when you buy quail or any bird you can ring the birds neck and try o ahve the dog retrieve it to seee if he will retireve it or eat it...i know she can find them because she finds wings very easily and she can retrieve a buey fine but when it comes to bringing back wings and stuff she tends not to want to..anywayz i hope she is a pointer because i can see it in her..she came from a flushing lab family at least a thats what i know about the mother as she hunted..and the father i didnt get to much info on but anywayz as a pup i saw her point at sights and sounds and now i see she will point at scent i mean full stounches and paw up but not bird scnet at the moment when i do find like a pack of geese or duck its funny she doesnt know what to do yet she will point then sit then point and then when they try to take off she will run after them.. but i did see her flash point 2 times at snipe while i was walking her into a field the first time was looking like a real point she was into thick shrubery so i couldnt see very good but it looked like a point then i gave her a command and she flushed it and the second time se pointed and then tried to creep in and the bird flushed..i was also thinking quail because then i can shoot it and have a feast..how many bird do you usually plant on the field for her to find???

Before I can answer you with any amount of accuracy, I need to know what training book(s) or tape(s) you are using as your training guides.

i have the Knutson book, and also a movie " Game Dog" i am also using tactics i have learned form previous training of pointers which really doesnt help in labs.

OK. As far as you not knowing if she' ll bring you the bird or just take off with it:
If you are training to " turn on the pointing gene" , you don' t want her to get any birds in her mouth. The birds need to be flyaways.

If you are doing retriever training, then you need to use frozen birds - she won' t be able to crunch them or eat them. Again, I would not suggest that you use quail -- to easy to swallow even if frozen. You need birds at least as big as a LARGE pigeon on up.

So, for a Pointing Lab. At her age you need to let her find (and point or flush) three or four birds every other day for a month. Then, after that, NO MORE LIVE BIRDS until retriever training has progressed to being finished with Force Fetch. DO NOT let her catch any birds during this portion of " turning on the pointing genes" .

It won' t be long till your dog is teething - once she starts teething, then you should ALMOST totally stop retrieving (only a couple retrieves a day using either a paint roller or an old sock that' s stuffed with more old socks). During the 6 weeks or so that she will be teething, you should pretty much only work on Obedience.

thanks for the information...i was a littel unshure about that becasue neithor of my sources seem to go over that really...i have one more question you said for " pointing gene" i should let the birds be flyaways..so i dont shoot the bird correct??? and also should i do retrieving with a frozen bird and flyaways at the same time..meaning like one week live birds the next frozen or should i just concentrate on live then after she masters it go to frozen??

As it says in the Knutson book, you should introduce your dog to flyaways somewhere around 4 months of age. Flyaways are just that -- they fly away (that' s why I suggested either Chukars that will recall or carded pigeons that you (not the dog) can recover. You won' t shoot any birds until later on (when you get back into pointer training) and only after the dog has pointed -- if the dog busts the bird,you don' t shoot it.

There is nothing wrong with alternating training with flyaways and retrieves. Flyaways every other day (or so) and frozen bird retrieves on the alternate days for about three or four weeks. You can certainy be using bumpers instead of birds on some of those retriever days as well. Just don' t mix frozen birds and bumpers in the same session.

And as I mentined, keep an eye on your dog' s mouth -- it' s going to be teething before long.

Training is a progression - follow your training book page by page, chapter by chapter.

thanks so much for the info this should make my training much easier.