I'm not asking about breeds within the categories. I think the pointing dogs are the easiest to train, with one big "but." But you need birds, a place and time. Here's a reply I made to a thank you note.


"I got my first copy of that book when I got my first pointer pup in 1967. I
had only hunted quail over pointing dogs a half dozen times. She turned out
fine, but it took her 3 years to start holding all her points. Books have
to have a certain amount of pages before they can be call books. Otherwise,
we would only have booklets for bird dog training. It's not rocket science,
and they learn so much on their own, when you simply take them hunting. All
that's left is teaching them to hold point. Teach the whoa, and the deal is done"

How about the dogs which you hunt? Easy? Difficult?

I love training bird dogs and even the individual dog that has strange quirks can be fun to train. My favorite part of bird dog training is being creative when dogs do not respond to certain methods that I like to use and figuring out what will help a dog succeed.
With that being said, I think my oldest pointer was challenging to train just because of his extreme energy and drive. My youngest pointer took to everything faster than any dog I have ever worked with. Both are very different in the field and now I have determined that they really do not like each other. My last training session resulted in the younger pointer staying away from the older one and finding his own bird after the older dog locked up on his bird. This situation left me with 2 dogs on point about 600 yards apart, so we took care of the first bird and moved to the young dog. Dogs are so much like people, very competitive and starving for that individual praise. Ha-ha