I hunt a versatile that Works as a retriever for waterfowl as well as to point upland birds. He is steady to wing shot and fall. Working him at times as a dedicated retriever makes maintaining a steady standard a lot easier. As mentioned earlier, I agree it is safer for the dog on low flushing birds. These are my thoughts and how I like to run my dogs. In no way am I casting stones at the way another man runs his dog. The tangible benefits I like from a steady to wing shot and fall dog are:
-A steady dog will do a much better job marking multiple birds.
-The ability to send the dog after the bird of choice first. Especially in the case of a cripple.
-Lining the dog up for the initial send on a blind retrieve where the dog does not have the mark.
I don’t put much stock in my dog needing to break on shot. I believe if my dog can’t reliably and quickly track a running cripple, I have a bigger problem than whether it breaks or not.
I like my dogs to break on the shot. When hunting blues the problem is not the dogs being able to track a cripple. The problem is those cripples running down a rat hole, and they all try to find a hole. Sometimes a dog can dig them out and sometimes they can’t. Either way your still standing around watching a dog dig itself out of sight not knowing what else is in that hole with him. The quicker a dog gets on a dead bird the better in my opinion.