Best Field Trial Golden Retrievers Article

Pointers and setters perform with style and grace. But the dog that hunts bcst depends on you!

On the day I decided to use my English setter as a duck dog, I must have left my brain on the shelf. It was mid-- December and cold, altogether nothing out of the ordinary for Montana. We dropped a lone goldeneye in the middle of the flat, brown Missouri River, and I sent in the little setter to fetch it up. She swam out just fine -- she'd been force-broken to retrieve on land or water -- but once she took a whiff of the duck she simply turned tail and paddled miserably back to shore, shivering so badly on her arrival I didn't have the heart to send her out again.

A couple of years later my buddy Dave and his lab, Tara, went pheasant hunting in the central part of the state. It was unseasonably warm -- in the 60s -- and he came back complaining that his dog just didn't have the stamina to hunt for more than an hour at a stretch.

Okay, Carty, I've heard all that before, so quit covering your butt and get to the point: Which is better, a pointer or a flusher?

You had to ask.

The Feathered Factor

Let's start by discussing the birds you hunt. By definition, certain species almost require certain types of dogs. Duck and goose hunters need retrievers. Open-country upland bird hunting demands wide-ranging pointers. That isn't to say that you couldn't hunt one bird or the other with either type of dog-you could-but you'd hardly be fulfilling that animal's breeding or potential.

On the other hand, the demands of certain species are a lot less clear-cut. Pheasants, perhaps the most popular game bird in the country, can be hunted with almost any dog, including beagles and, according to one story I've heard, Doberman pinschers. Big-running pointers can and do "close up" considerably in the thick cover many pheasants live in, while big, tough retrievers like Labs, goldens, and Chesapeakes can plow right through the bad stuff. The small and agile springer spaniel, conversely, lacking the muscle to bust through brush all day, relies on finesse and will put up as many birds as any of them.

Part of the reason the debate over pointers and flushers has been simmering-if not raging-for generations is the different mindsets of dog owners themselves. At the risk of overgeneralizing, those who own pointers value style and animation almost as much as a good nose. Many pointer owners feel, and I'm one of them, that no retriever of any type will ever be able to match the style and sheer grace of a setter or pointer slashing across a mile-long wheatfield in North Dakota. But put that same hunter in a North Dakota marsh, and the tables turn dramatically. An overanimated dog can be a liability in a duck blind, and a pointer-no matter how well trained it may be-simply doesn't have the heart (or the hair coat) to pluck ducks out of freezing water for hours at a stretch. So dyed-in-- the-wool waterfowlers see their own kind of beauty in their Labs' courage, intelligence, and sheer drive during difficult retrieves. This same view carries to those who use the identical dogs for upland work, those flushing-dog owners who don't miss the "style" of a pointing dog in their thorn-busting companions.

I'm well aware of pointing Labs and the so-called versatile breeds, the griffons and wirehairs that retrieve ducks and the springer spaniels that tap dance through corn rows to put up a limit of pheasants. But the idea of one dog that will do it all equally well is a myth. Sure, your all-age, quail-loving English pointer may very well pin a pheasant rooster in the middle of the gnarliest, thorn-infested jungle in southern Iowa, but do you really want to wade in there yourself and boot it out?

Perceptions about dog performance, I've found, vary in proportion to the relative hunting experience of the individual bird dog owner. People who don't hunt upland birds much-say, half a dozen times a year or less-often aren't comfortable hunting over pointers that routinely stretch their range to 200 or 300 yards and then some. The less-experienced dog man's sense of control -- real or perceived-calls for a close-ranging dog he can keep his eye on. Most of the hard-core pointer people I know, on the other hand, want their dogs to get out there. Close-ranging pointers are considered "boot polishers"-and that's not a compliment.

For the former, retrievers and spaniels-or even some of the close-ranging continental pointing breeds like griffons and wirehairs-may be just the ticket, even if they're hunting birds like Huns, sharptail grouse, chukars, or desert quail that otherwise would lend themselves to a bigger-running dog.

The downside to hunting upland birds over retrievers and spaniels, however, is that they take considerably more training to get field ready. The dirty little secret those in the pointer camp will never admit to those in the retriever camp is that training pointers is comparatively easy. A pointer needs to learn whoa and come, but beyond those basic commands, good pointers will teach themselves to quarter, hunt to objectives, and find birds given sufficient field work. But flushers are often trained by their owners to quarter within range (a long, frustrating process with some dogs), take a line, mark multiple falls, and perform all the other nuances that most retriever folks consider standard operating procedure for a finished animal. So while a lot of inexperienced hunters lean toward the supposedly "easy" dogs like Labs and goldens, many are not fully aware of the amount of training such retrieving breeds will ultimately require.

Of course, one option is to do no training at all and simply let the dog figure things out on its own. I've seen this work-exactly once-with a German shorthair that was so exceptionally gifted there was nothing his owner could do to screw him up. In every other case, untrained dogs are at best mediocre hunting companions, no matter what the breed. I cringe when someone tells me that his dog is a "natural" hunter: All hunting dogs are natural hunters. The trick is to get them to hunt for you. I've said it before and I'll say it again: A man with a well-trained dog possessing a middling nose will have far more fun-and shoot more game-than a man trying to hunt over a genius of a dog who is completely out of control.

Doggone Choices and Living With Them

Many people will choose between a flusher and a pointer not for their potential in the field, but rather for their amenability as pets. Hard-core bird hunters, waterfowlers, and field-trialers can't fathom these attitudes, but it's far from a bad idea. Most of today's hunters aren't going to be in the field for more than a few days a season, and for the rest of the year they're going to have to deal with a dog that plays with the kids, chases the neighbor's cat, rides in the front seat on the way to the grocery store, and occasionally howls at the moon. If this is you and your perfect hunting dog also needs to be the perfect pet, beware of stereotypes. Despite what you may have read, most of the English pointers I've met have warm, affectionate personalities. I've yet to meet a surly Chesapeake (if anything, they're too friendly), and not all spaniels are nervous little twits. Good shorthairs are certainly not always plodders, and many of today's Brittanies are moderately big-running dogs, not the close-in shufflers of 30 years ago.

Much is made of buying the best breeding you can afford, and I certainly won't dispute the merits of that argument since it's one I subscribe to myself. But when the three-hunting-trips-a-year guy buys a Lab whose father was a national field-trial champion and discovers he's purchased a dog that's simply too wound up to keep in the house, or when a casual upland hunter, after reading an open-- country Hungarian partridge story written by yours truly decides he needs a setter from the top NSTRA dog in the -- and that dog proceeds to run out of sight every time he opens the kennel door-the bewildered owner wrings his hands and wonders how he's failed. Or worse, blames the dog. So look for good breeding, yes; but don't discount perfectly good litters in your own neighborhood just because the parents aren't trial dogs. Then, if at all possible, get to know the parents of your prospective puppy. If they have personalities you like, chances are their offspring will, too.

Ultimately, your preferences will probably come down to what you're used to and enjoy. Labs certainly aren't the most popular dogs in the country because they're the best all-around hunting dogs; they're popular because of their good looks and happy-go-- lucky personalities. Ditto for golden retrievers and Brittanies. I'm primarily an open-country upland hunter myself (with periodic forays into duck blinds), and by all rights I should own a string of hard-charging English pointers. But I don't. Why? Because I grew up with Brittanies. I like their personalities and looks. These days I own two Brits and a setter, with another setter purchase on the near horizon. They're good, if not exceptional, dogs and have adapted well to the type of Hun and sharptail prairie hunting I love, although I'd be the first to admit I might be better off with a really big-running dog. And maybe I will own a dog like that someday. For now, though, I'm more than happy with what I've got. And who can argue with that?