Bird Dogs & Training  |  04/06/2020

New QF Bird Dog Breeds Page Celebrates Our Canine Partners


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Researching your first or next bird dog? Just browsing upland hunting breeds and dreaming? QF's new Bird Dog Breeds page is your one-stop kickstarter.

By Tom Carpenter

There was only one problem with working on Quail Forever and Pheasants Forever's brand-new Bird Dog Breeds Page:

Literally, I found reasons to want every breed that I wrote about myself or edited for inclusion.

Don’t tell Lark my little Epagneul Breton this, but there are a lot of other breeds to love out there. What a blast it was to help put this page together with Rachel Hoveland (PF’s front end website developer, resident shotgun expert, and Deutsch Drahthaar owner (Luke) and authority) and Chad Love (Quail Forever editor, new owner of a pointer puppy (Cactus Abbey), English Setter fan too, Chesapeake guy and itinerant upland hunting partner).

This should be easy to believe: The Bird Dog Breeds Page has always been one of PF and Q's best-visited on the entire website. It was time for an update … and Bird Dogs for Habitat Month was the perfect time to launch it.

So what made my own list of new breeds to get curious about? Through many friendships, I already consider myself a big fan of the field cocker, Lab, Vizsla, Draht, setter, Springer, pointer and GSP.

But here are my other Top 3:

Boykin Spaniel: Great small size, dual-purpose for waterfowl, all brown and beautiful. 

Bracco Italiano: How cool are these burly, hound-like, laid-back pointing dogs? 

Spinone Italiano: Sorry to go Italiano on you again, but I have met several of these dogs in my life (see Carp's Corner An Upland Encounter in the spring 2019 issue of Pheasants Forever Journal), and found them extremely friendly while doubling as laid back but efficient hunters.
 

Enjoy QF’s new Bird Dog Breeds Page, and while you’re at it, vote for your favorite breed(s) now in this year’s Bird Dogs for Habitat Campaign and create some habitat for upland birds and bird dogs.