Breeding for pointing instinct...

[nitrex]

Another thread got me thinking... Several here have dogs that do not show much pointing instinct until they are 6 months to as much as 18 months. Would you consider this a fault and remove them from potential breeding candidates? Or consider them "late bloomers" and if everything else is great follow through and breed them?

Nitrex

[DonF]

Not hardly. I believe most any dog can be made to point. Notice what they've done with Labs, the pointing lab. Pointing is a trait I believe come's from wild dogs a long time ago. It wasn't really pointing but rather stopping to avoid scaring of the prey they were after. Is it intensified with breeding? I believe it is. You'll notice that at some point in the training process most if not all dog's will creep toward the bird. That, I believe is natural. Those that take their dog's hunting and learning on the job, Don't have dogs that just go out and point things for them from the start. What they do is only shoot birds the dog handles properly. Imagine turning a dog loose on poor flying game farm birds. The dog would learn in a short time it can catch most if not all of them. Consider what happen's with flushing dog's. All probably hesitate at first. They've come across something they don't recognize. The idea is to get the dog pushing up he bird, easy smeezy, let the catch birds on the ground, who care's, they won't catch many wild birds. But if those same dog's aren't allowed to catch birds, they learn to hesitate before going in. It's called blinking, a negative in flushing dogs. Most blinker's are taught to blink.

I think the trait's we see in dog's have always been there and are buried in there on all dog's. But through breeding the traits we look for are brought out. Labs weren't pointing eog's until someone figured out they could be made to point depending on how they are trained. All the breeder's of them are doing is bringing out instincts that were already there and they attempt to intensify them. Several years ago. I checked around the country on the internet with pointing lab kennels. I only found one kennel, Minnesota I think, that was willing to guarantee their dog's would point. Here are probably more today but they have been breeding to enhance that trait a long time. I believe it is already there in all dog's but in some breeds i's simply enhanced a lot more.

[Wildweeds]

I posted in that other thread,I had the dog that was 18 months old who liked to knock and chase, now for the rest of the story,I also had her littermate sister that was the one of two dogs I've owned that were very very pointy,that female pointed hard every bird she ever came across.Same parents same genetics different lineup.I bred a litter two years ago,both parents very strong pointing instinct and every pup in the litter was pointing at 6 weeks,scent pointing at 8 weeks,Stanchly holding points for the gun at 5 months

[hustonmc]

It's to easy to acquire a pup that will hold birds for the gun at 5-8 months. Why waist your time with something that doesn't? That's my opinion. There is far to many things to train a good pointing dog to do, pointing shouldn't be one of them.