Has anyone had one or heard of one being used as a gun dog? If so, how did it work out?

nnnnnnnaaaah

All the dalmations I know of have gone blind and were put down after a couple years. I wouldn't.

you can force fetch anything...my first dog Gene was a mutt of sorts, he was slow and mouthy but got the job done

Never heard anything good about them, health wise. I wouldn't try it.

Not a chance. Yes, you can force fetch anything but that doesn't make it a good gun dog. If the dog doesn't have the tools to do the job FF is not going to magically give the dog the tools.

Ask this question, how many Dalmations have you seen duck hunting? I'm guessing zero. People all the time say things like "well I have a GSP and he's the best duck dog ever" or "my Vizsla is just as good of a retriever as a Lab". Fat chance, they can believe that all they like but those breeds are not retrievers and they will never be as good of a waterfowl dog as a CBR or Lab.

Of course there are exceptions to every rule but for the most part that will hold true, assuming the dogs come from quality genetics.

If your in the market for a gun dog. Go with what is tried and true and save yourself the headache.

My Vizsla could of been a great duck dog but she preferred rabbits and squirrels lol. She'd fetch a duck 100,000,000 yards away! She blends in very well too. The disadvantages of a Dalmation would be the white!!!

The only Dalmatians I ever knew had an aggressive streak to them as well. Now, if you already have one I guess you could try and let us know how it works out for you. As far as alternative breeds, there are plenty that would get the job done but they won't all do it in the same style. Labs are popular because they are good at it, willing to please, and relatively easy to train. Great with kids as well, my daughter absolutely loves my dog and in fact her first word was his name, Beau.

I'd go with the tried and true.... L A B can't go wrong

My first word was beer

I have a buddy whose roommate has a Dalmatian they commonly refer to him as the antichrist…

I'm sure you get the point by now... NO CHANCE. They are looney.

They are freaking blinding white??

You gonna hide him under the boat?

The plus side is they may just be dumb enough to sit in the freezing cold even with their thin skin and minimal coat.

do whats in your heart young gun, these guys dont know your hound like you do

There's no retriever in the dalmation woodpile. Like someone above said, you can force-fetch any dog... But retrievers have been bred and selected for hundreds of years to do what they do. The end result is a dog with a massive aptitude for retrieving downed birds, and even then they sometimes don't work out.

The purpose of carriage dogs was to run all day long with their carriage and raise an unholy racket whenever anyone other than the owner got close to the carriage at night. That's what they've been bred to do over hundreds of years and you can't train it out of them anymore than you can train pointing out of a german shorthair.

I've never had a dalmation, but my neighbor growing up did. His father used to come home from work everyday, put a harness on his dog, tie the harness lead to his bicycle and let the dog pull him around the neighborhood for forty-five minutes or so. When they left, the dog would be pulling hard enough for his front legs not to touch the ground. When they returned, the dog would STILL be pulling hard enough for his front legs not to touch the ground. There was an elderly woman who lived on the other side of their home who would often spend several hours weeding and working in her garden. Every day, that dog would stare at her through the fence and bark loudly about every 1.5 seconds until she was done and went back inside. You could tell exactly when she started working in her garden, exactly when she finished and when she had to take bathroom breaks in this manner. You could also tell when a cat walked through their driveway in the middle of the night, or maybe just when the wind blew some leaves in the front yard. They eventually got a bark collar for the dog, but it was never collar conditioned so it had no idea what caused the shocks (or maybe it was too stupid to figure it out or too determined to be deterred). Thereafter the dog barked less, but you would still hear the dog yelping while barking at least once everyday.

They loved that dog though. It was actually really good at being gentle while wrestling with toddlers. Not good with other dogs, however.

If you want a dog to swim out in cold water and pick up birds for you, then your only real choices are pretty well established. If you want to go REALLY crazy you could try to work an F1 labradoodle or something like that - but I doubt you would find a working poodle and a working lab with owners willing to cross them very easily...

Makes me think of all those white labs

I want to hear stories about this dog.

Breeding and training only get you to 1/5 of the way there. Other 4/5 is reps in the field.

Hunting dogs of course 

got 101 problems but a dalmatian aint one

I would say it's the other way around. Experience is a huge factor but the dog must have the talent and training to even get to the point of getting that experience/field reps.

I would take a well bred, well trained young Lab with zero experience over a Dalmation with 1000's of field reps.

Ill say this. My dog hates wearing his cold water vest