Jeffrey,
The breeder that lives just down the road has had setters, g.s.p.'s english pointers, and brittanies. He is in his early 70's and has been around many different breeds and knows a lot about training dogs. We were talking one day and I told him I could not imagine a lab (which I love that breed) being a pointing dog in any way. He told me the best hunt he ever had in south dakota was when a pointing lab was hunting that day. That really opened my eyes, that was early on when I first met him and I was just trying to soak up all the info he would provide. My buddy has 2 draathars? (spelling) and my brittany and his oldest dog hunted together on a pheasant farm. He said the same thing as everyone else, they are pretty hardy dogs. I am wondering if it would be hard to find someone around your area that has any of the breeds listed above and spend time with them and their dogs hunting. That is what I did with my friend with 2 brittanies, it seemed to help me make up my mind. Our dogs have a bit of trouble in the 2nd season, when its over about a foot of snow on the ground, but I just keep the hunts shorter, its hard on both of us.
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