Gun Dog Breeds: A Guide to Spaniels, Retrievers, and Pointing Dogs

Rating:
Summary: Still important for first-time gun dog buyers
Review: A very honest look at various flushing, pointing, and retrieving breeds. Includes strengths and weaknesses of each breed, ease of training, suitability to certain types of game, etc. Is now somewhat dated and does not reflect emerging interest in a few of the rarer continental gun dogs, which are given only a brief mention in the back of the book. Was also written before the recent explosive growth in popularity of the field-bred English Cocker. Fergus' bias toward flushing dogs shows through a bit, as he neglects to mention the pointing breeds' invaluable use in covering wide open tracts of land (which saves the hunter the task of doing so). Still, these are minor criticisms, and most first-time gun dog would likely be better of with a retriever or spaniel anyway, for reasons Fergus states. This book should be required reading for all first-time buyers of gun dogs, too many of whom end up buying a dog completely unsuited for their hunting purposes and lifestyle---often because of some of "sales copy" they read on a breeder's website or in some other dog book. The more objective approach in this book will not only help hunters avoid such mistakes, it may also help reduce the number of unwanted gun dogs submitted to shelters annually by people who find out too late that such dogs are more than they can handle.