I'll answer your question on shooting birds over
trial dogs. I feel it
is a matter of the individual dog. I seldom shoot or kill
birds over young dogs that I am developing for trials. I
feel it is just another reason that they will want to break.
If they are allowed to fetch birds and break when they are
young, it makes it harder to break them. I do get a lot
of young dogs in for trials that have been gunned over and it
isn't the end of the world. In fact, these dogs
often have tremendous drive and bird finding abilities, but the
fact is these dogs will always remember having birds in their
mouths. That is also why "bad training birds" with a young
dog is also a big disaster. You should try to avoid using
weak flying birds that a dog can catch. There are
occasions that killing birds over dogs can be used to fix
different problems. Shooting birds on the ground in
front of a dog can be used as a cure for flagging. It
isn't 100%, but I've seen it work with quite a few dogs.
Also some dogs that are not real intense can be "fired" up on
birds by bringing back a shot bird or allowed to mouth a bird or
two. Each dog should be interpreted individually in all
aspects of training, but for the most part a well bred dog
probably will not need to have birds shot over it to be
developed into a field trial contender. Finally a polished
well broke trial dog can certainly make a great gunning dog too,
if just not allowed to break and retrieve. I hunt all my
trial dogs, I simply don't allow them to break or mouth birds.
