MF, if you don't want to take time to train a hunting dog or just a dog you shouldn't have one, period! They don't train themselves to do what you want or behave the way you want it to no matter what the breed or how biddable they are. It isn't fun when your dog in in the next county and you are trying to call him back and he doesn't listen. How many have you trained, this grouch has hunted with and trained and trained several breeds for over 50 years. If you want to give a young person advice, trying good advice instead of just go for it and don't worry about sensible advise given by others!

anyway, ill just gonna have to think about it spose.

yeh well i haven't trained any but i just want a dog thats going to be a good companion and have heaps on energy.

Daniel, most dogs will be good companions but how good depends on the owner. You must make sure your dog knows that you are in charge and not the other way around. It isn't that difficult but it does take some time beginning from the time you bring the pup home with consistent obedience training, things like the meaning of NO, to hup(sit) ,stay and to come to you, I use the word here to call mine to me. It takes a little training every day, you will also need to socialize the pup by taking it to places where it will be around other people and animals so it will not be a problem later on. Those are the basics and will be the difference between a dog that will be a nightmare or a good well behaved companion. It doesn't take a whole lot of time but some time each day, perhaps a half hour. There are lots of books and videos available to help you know what to do depending on what you want to hunt or even if you just want a house dog, obedience training is important. There is more dependng on what you want but I just hit on the basics. I just got up to check my e-mail and I had to move my young setter's head off my lap so I could get of the couch. She is well trained and likes being with me and is a bird hunting machine. A trained dog is a happy dog because it knows what is expected of you. An untrained dog is many time a nervous dog because it is always getting yelled at or punished for destructive behavior. The above applies to hunting dogs or simply a house dog/companion. You will of course do what you want to do but since you ask some questions, this is my advise.

Daniel you need to really sit back and listen to your elders if you're going to come on a website and ask questions. If you don't listen, then there is no reason for you to be on here and take up people's valuable time. Between Oldtimr and myself we are both approaching 70 years of age. I know he trained a number of dogs for both the companionship and wanting to see a good dog work. I, myself, was involved at a much younger age than you are now watching my Dad and another friend train their coon hounds. As I grew into my teens those dogs all died of old age and we went into championship beagles and I grew with them learning how to properly train a dog. Finally in my older years I was into bird dogs, one that turned out to be the best buddy I ever had and he just died in 2014. He was a ball of energy and when he came from a top kennel the commitment was made to work him every day, which I did his entire life. Owning an animal is a big commitment to him and yourself, so seriously think an awful lot about that before you go out and get one that you haven't made that 110% commitment to! Otherwise it will be just like Oldtimr stated and will not be fair to the animal.

It was the other old grouch. :)

The young fellow asked for advice on which type of dog to get. He said he was going to train it around rabbits. 16 is a great age to get started with dogs and a collie cross is an easy dog to train and custom made for rabbits. Maybe they are out of your experience but you could check on you-tube to see how they work. As for how many dogs I've trained-handled, a few. Though to be honest I never went past the HZP level.

As a side note I don't think addressing people who come here looking for advice in a condescending manner is very helpful.

The only thing that meets that statement in this thread was your "grouch" comment that you still apparently feel is funny when it wasn't in the least! This isn't the first time you've pulled that type of stuff, so please don't try to blame two people trying to get their message across to a youngster that has proved rather "hard-headed" in both threads he has started.

Whether you think something is funny or not doesn't interest me. It's the tone that was the problem. Puzzle on that for awhile.

Don't need to puzzle on anything and the only two things that don't pertain exactly to what the thread was about and our help to the boy was your grouch comment, then your "funny" retort, and now your retort to me. The "tone" you refer to was of a serious nature and may possibly be because one of the people trying to help him is a retired GW and the other is also a retired LE Investigator. Both were not only trying to explain things to the kid, but also on the other thread trying to keep him from violating game laws. Your sidetracking the thread like you did IMHO was uncalled for and could have been handled in a PM, rather than the way you did it. No sense in arguing now since both threads have answered what the kid wanted to know and you got your point across even though IMHO you're incorrect. Have a good day, as it's perfect weather up here to run the dogs!

I got a good chuckle out of it!:lolabove: