I love my choice of a lab right now but god willing I’m going to have 5/6 different types of dogs before I kick the bucket. It doesn’t sound like people branch out much and have owned multiple breeds.
Beside Labs Ive owned or co-owned Goldens, Springers, Pointers and Weimaraners. I've hunted with and trained or trained with Chessies, Brittanys, Griffons, Tollers, Setters, Cockers, Beagles, Cougar hounds and various crosses of the above.
I started with hunting dogs as a kid with my father. I'm 70 now.
They all have their purposes, strengths and weaknesses.
"Guns kill people like spoons made Rosie O'Donel fat"
I started with labs and English Cockers at the tender age of 2. I continued with them until '84 when I lost my last Lab. Since then I have had Springers, Goldens, Redbones and Flat Coats. I have trained Poodles, Chessys, Spinonis, GW/SPs Field Spaniels and AWS. Love them all so my current choices were not a shot in the dark. Good Lord willing and the creeks don't rise I'll have another Lab before I'm to old
"BORN TO HUNT"
Foxton's Cuervo Gold "KEELA" Oct. 2004-June 2017. Always in my blind and my heart.
If a hunter was living here in BC and knew they wouldn't be doing any upland bird hunting, except for the odd grouse they popped off a FSR road and just hunting waterfowl, there probably isn't a good reason for owning a pointer. I know if that was the case for me, I'd likely own a retriever, probably a lab,,,,, a nice, on the small side, chocolate female from strong hunting lines.
"BORN TO HUNT"
Foxton's Cuervo Gold "KEELA" Oct. 2004-June 2017. Always in my blind and my heart.
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Yup!!! The voice of experience.
One of my hunting partners has a Foxton Springer and he is an absolute pheasant machine. The idea you need a pointer to hunt pheasants successfully is ridiculous.
"Guns kill people like spoons made Rosie O'Donel fat"
You definitely don't need one but I just like hunting pheasants with a pointing breed. Seeing the dog methodically working a field and then go on point so that it's as stiff as a statue without it moving a muscle is magical.
I like that when they go on point that there's never any rush. I remember vividly taking my cousin and my brother out a couple of times when they came to visit me in Kelowna that when my brit would go on point I'd send one of them over to the dog's right and one over to its left and told them I'd walk in front of the dog to flush the bird. Bloody birds didn't stand a chance. It was almost like shooting fish in barrel even though every single one of them was a wild bird. Sure was a lot of fun! Now it seems like there's no place to hunt them.
But both you guys are right,,,, a lot of different breeds can get the job done. It's just personal preference, but I just like the esthetics of seeing it done with a pointing breed.
When hunting Pheasants on flat ground and light cover on Pheasants release sites Pointers and Setters do very well, but when you are in heavy and thick cover with hawthorn and thick willows in the coulees in south west Alberta or along the southern Red Deer river you need a dog that will go into that thick cover to flush out those birds. I'v seen Labs, Springers, Golden's and Chessies go in and flush them out, If the dogs know their in there you can't keep them out. I had an old Black lab female that once she was well experienced in Pheasant hunting she would encircle a patch of bush and if she went in,you better be ready because something was coming out, but if she encircled a patch and then carried onto the next one , It took a while but I ended up believing her nose.