family/hunting dog

[skeet]

Being a bird(any kind) hunter has had me owning all kinds of dogs. Pointers Settrs retrievers and an all purpose dog or so. Had 2 Chessies...great dogs but a bit(a lot) harder to train. Not the retrieveing part but the little things. Labs are easily trained and for the area I hunt probably the best dog for the job. Really easy to keep in the house. Pointers are NOT an all around dog. Setters can be used for an all around dog if you have a good one...GSPs are good dogs also..probably close to the all around dog. Usually not as easy to train either. Never had a few of the other dogs. Had a friend who had a Standard Poodle that did everything. His wife wanted to have the dog have a hair cut so that it looked like one of the lap poodles..but the guy threatened her with a fate worse than death(although I don't know what that was...something about a picture of her in some pose or whatever). Seriously the dog pointed, retrieved, took care of the kids, patrolled the house and I think it even cooked french meals. The sucker did collect cockleburrs though. For all intents and purposes the lab will probably be the best dog for your needs. It really has been for me. My first and probably the dog of my lifetime retrieved over 2400 geese 2200 ducks and more than 10000 doves. a deer, quite a few pheasants and quail and sundry other stuff. Woodpeckers is what I trained her on. They were depredating the apples.