Bird dog questions

[Nameless Range]

I am a pointer guy that wants a dog that will range to the end of the earth and hold a point until the end of time. Your requirements of, in order, 1) follow your son around, and b. hunt pheasants, tell me you want a lab.

How do you feel about hair? In your morning coffee, your bed, and in the air you breathe?

You can borrow mine for the weekend to test your wife's tolerance.

 

[BirdManMike]

How do you feel about hair? In your morning coffee, your bed, and in the air you breathe?

You can borrow mine for the weekend to test your wife's tolerance.

Haha, it is annoying. Have 3 dogs at the moment, wirehair griff, munsterlander/griff mutt (rescue), and vizsla. The mutt sheds quite a lot surprisingly - he may not shed as much as a lab, but enough! Wife always says, jokingly, that the hair makes the food it is ALWAYS in taste better.

 

[OntarioHunter]

How do you feel about hair? In your morning coffee, your bed, and in the air you breathe?

You can borrow mine for the weekend to test your wife's tolerance.

Nothing is free. I find my Fr Britt's hair seems more prolific than my Lab's ... even when I had two black Labs. As noted in another thread, it's unclear if yellow Labs shed more or their hair is simply more visible, but does seem to be more of a problem than black or chocolate varieties.

 

[JLS]

How do you feel about hair? In your morning coffee, your bed, and in the air you breathe?

This really is no joke. I hated cleaning up hair from an 85 pound lab.

 

[Nameless Range]

This really is no joke. I hated cleaning up hair from an 85 pound lab.

We gave up and just accepted it. You can see my daughter's pants and the chair covered in hair. It would probably help to not let the dog on the furniture, but that is another battle we gave up on.

 

[Drake4]

Thanks everyone. You’ve given us a lot to think about. Do any of you specific recommendations for kennels within a few hours of SW MT? I looked at the website on the first page for pointing labs. Any idea how much those pups cost?

You’ve got a great breeder right there in Ennis.
www.montanalabs.com

I’ve personally had 2 labs from there and know of 4 others that went to close friends. All have been great dogs. Hunters, kids/family, temperament, personality....
Definitely not mtmiller pic quality, but I’ve got hundreds similar to these.

 

[OntarioHunter]

We gave up and just accepted it. You can see my daughter's pants and the chair covered in hair. It would probably help to not let the dog on the furniture, but that is another battle we gave up on.

View attachment 172445

Yep, with Labs it's a losing battle. They prefer to bond as close as they can. Ellie would crawl inside my skin if she could find a hole big enough. She shares the bed with me and Fr Britt at hunting camp trailer (or with my brother if he's there). When I had two Labs, sometimes three dogs piled on if it was cold (but Opal would usually move to the floor once I went to bed). That old army fart sack could get kinda gross after a couple of weeks. Fortunately the sheet inside is removable and good laundry facilities are available nearby. A bit (or even a lot) of hair is a small price to pay for so much love.

 

[VikingsGuy]

Lots of great dogs out there - but I will put in my pitch for my favorite. The English-style Lab is tough to beat in northern areas. Great noses, great retrieves, love water, love to please, one of the calmest hunting breeds in the house, great with kids/family. There is a reason that labs are the number one breed in the US - and the English style breeders have added a level of calmness that make them even better.

 

[OntarioHunter]

You’ve got a great breeder right there in Ennis.
www.montanalabs.com

I’ve personally had 2 labs from there and know of 4 others that went to close friends. All have been great dogs. Hunters, kids/family, temperament, personality....
Definitely not mtmiller pic quality, but I’ve got hundreds similar to these.

Great looking dogs, Drake. Twelve hundred bucks is a lot but seems that outfit takes care to breed well. If the original poster is hung up on "pointing" Lab, I think he can expect to pay a lot more. From what I have read on the subject, it seems pointing Labs often require some tuning to get them past the flushing instinct. My last Lab, Opal, would also point birds if she could see them ... and they didn't move. I'm sure the right trainer could have perfected her into a great pointing dog ... but it just wasn't that important to me. Incidentally, she had no papers and cost just $200. A garage litter. Here she is at just three months doing everything: pointing, flushing, and retreiving. And again at the end of her last season. Fortunately I know a great pup when I see one ... and I could tell this one would be fantastic even without papers. And she was. No significant health issues till mast cell cancer took her at age eleven.

 

[Irrelevant]

B: As @OntarioHunter notes, retrieving is a secondary skill (at best) for most of the pointing breeds..

Unless you're talking a ball, then it's a primary!

 

[pre6422hornet]

God I loved my pointing Lab Buck RIP. I purchased him before he was born in 1998 and his daddy was Rik's Risky Raider, arguably at that time one of the best gun dogs in the country.

I was 24 years old coming off a broken engagement and POURED my heart and soul into Buck. I read Richard Wolters "Bird Dog" and "Water Dog" and did everything exactly as he instructed. At 8 months of age he was completely finished. Hand signals, whistle trained, etc.. all by me and to be honest probably more by him. He would hold point till the sun went down, would sit in frigid cold water in a duck blind without even flinching. We hunted all over the country for birds and had a blast doing it. I was offered big money for him more than once on hunts where I was hunting at private reserves with "professional guides and dogs" along side him and he would find birds that the pro dogs ran right by. Really made me smile. I never competed with him so I will never know how good he really was.

Unfortunately he developed bladder cancer at 9 years of age and we had to put him down waaaaaaay to young. To this day my wife and I still talk about just how good he was, and I am not talking about the hunting. He was the best family dog, loved kids to the end. Another quick story. We were at my parents house and my then 2 year old nephew is out in the backyard playing with my sister and niece. All of a sudden Buck and my parents golden retriever started barking uncontrollably at the back door. I walk over and there is my nephew bent over the edge of my parents pool. I opened the door and both dogs ran over to him. Buck nestled his head in-between my nephew and the pool and he pushed him back as my parents retriever grabbed him by the t shirt and pulled. If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't believe it. Totally unreal.

Love me a lab or retriever. Get a good vacuum though

 

[mtmiller]

I am not sure this is what you are looking for in a first dog, especially if the priority is companion for your son, but geographically this kennel is in your neck of the woods.

I am very happy with how Slash is developing into a great hunting partner and his parents are pretty stellar. If he doesn't turn out as good as I hope, the blame will be on me.

He came from the Teddy x Skye breeding (though they never met)

Skye and Teddy are on this page, as well as a litter picture. That is Slash in the "red" collar.

Rocky Point Kennels Labrador Breeder

Rocky Point Kennels. Pointing lab breeder in the Northwest.

www.rockypointkennels.com

BTW, Jenna at Rocky Point was amazing to work with. She sent me regular updates and pictures throughout the process. I am a lucky owner.

Just to embarrass the kid. Three months and 20 days.

 

[MTLabrador]

You’ve got a great breeder right there in Ennis.
www.montanalabs.com

I’ve personally had 2 labs from there and know of 4 others that went to close friends. All have been great dogs. Hunters, kids/family, temperament, personality....
Definitely not mtmiller pic quality, but I’ve got hundreds similar to these.

Diamond R has some great dogs. We’ve had one from them and a few close friends have had them.

 

[OntarioHunter]

I am not sure this is what you are looking for in a first dog, especially if the priority is companion for your son, but geographically this kennel is in your neck of the woods.

I am very happy with how Slash is developing into a great hunting partner and his parents are pretty stellar. If he doesn't turn out as good as I hope, the blame will be on me.

He came from the Teddy x Skye breeding (though they never met)

Skye and Teddy are on this page, as well as a litter picture. That is Slash in the "red" collar.

Rocky Point Kennels Labrador Breeder

Rocky Point Kennels. Pointing lab breeder in the Northwest.

www.rockypointkennels.com

BTW, Jenna at Rocky Point was amazing to work with. She sent me regular updates and pictures throughout the process. I am a lucky owner.

Just to embarrass the kid. Three months and 20 days.

Quite the fancy website but if you can find a price list in there, you're a better researcher than I am.

 

[mtmiller]

Quite the fancy website but if you can find a price list in there, you're a better researcher than I am.

If you have to ask......

 

[Nameless Range]

I am not sure this is what you are looking for in a first dog, especially if the priority is companion for your son, but geographically this kennel is in your neck of the woods.

I am very happy with how Slash is developing into a great hunting partner and his parents are pretty stellar. If he doesn't turn out as good as I hope, the blame will be on me.

He came from the Teddy x Skye breeding (though they never met)

Skye and Teddy are on this page, as well as a litter picture. That is Slash in the "red" collar.

Rocky Point Kennels Labrador Breeder

Rocky Point Kennels. Pointing lab breeder in the Northwest.

www.rockypointkennels.com

BTW, Jenna at Rocky Point was amazing to work with. She sent me regular updates and pictures throughout the process. I am a lucky owner.

Just to embarrass the kid. Three months and 20 days.

Nothing makes me long for bird season like the photos you share of your hunting partners in action @mtmiller.

 

[golfer]

So while we are on to asking about pups. I feel this question is like Chevy vs Ford. What does everyone look for in a pup?

 

[mtmiller]

So while we are on to asking about pups. I feel this question is like Chevy vs Ford. What does everyone look for in a pup?

I am far from an expert, but I look at pedigree and health certs. Interested what others with more knowledge have to say.

EDIT, sorry for that rather generic answer. I was told once to not get to carried away looking past 2 generations. No idea if there is any merit to this suggestion.

Other things I looked at just after I lost GuNR were color, gender and location. I found some other interesting pups that were a little cheaper, but required a flight and then the cost difference was a wash. I had been following Rocky Point on FB for more than a year and really liked the dogs they were putting together. In my opinion, I was very lucky and not all the pups were spoken for before they were on the ground. I got the last male pick from litter. I believe all the females (IIRC 7)were sold before they hit the ground. First, third or ninth pick didn't bother me as I was paying for mom/dad/grandpa/grandma.

 

[golfer]

I am far from an expert, but I look at pedigree and health certs. Interested what others with more knowledge have to say.

Heath garuntee was big for us as well. But it seems that everyone a guy talks to in regards to when it comes time to pick the pup everyone looks for little things and they all seem to have a different take or approach.

 

[Tracks74]

Don’t let the purchase price of a dog guide your decision. It is a decision that should last more than a decade.
Over that decade, the couple hundred dollars difference on a purchase price is minuscule to the rest of investment.
Training, food, vet bills, collars, kennels, all over these years add up so quickly.
Choose the breeder / dog that gives you the most confidence in the investment.