Toughest pointer breed

If you were looking for a new pointer for a gun dog, which bloodline would be preferred for being the “toughest”? By tough, I mean willingness to hunt longer, through the brush, cactus and sandburrs. My Elhew gyp is what I call “soft”. When coming in contact with stickers,cactus, mesquite thorns, and sand burrs, she shuts down. My Britt gyp is ok with all mentioned but sand burrs. She won’t shut because of them, but spends a lot of time stopping to pick them out.
Also, I’ve always heard dogs with pink pads aren’t as tough as black padded dogs.

Good question. I've seen tough and soft among all blood lines.

I agree, so at what age would you be able to distinguish this trait?

I've had two dogs that would hunt literally all day and run on broken glass, both were Fiddler bred.

I've had 2 Elhew crossed dogs that were tougher than nails. Ran big, hard and would go until you made them stop or the heat did. Neither one would stop to take out burrs and paid no attention to cactus. Both were black footed dogs raised on screenings and roaded on gravel roads on a 4 wheeler before season. Never had to trim nails on screenings.

I have a male Elhew/Pinehill pointer that has more heart than he does sense. Tough as they come. I have heard the same thing about lighter colored pads vs dark colored pads.

I’d try to get a pup from a hunting buddy or breeder that you’ve hunted with both parents or other dogs out of that line. If one of your buddies has a dog with the traits you want get a dog from the same breeding he got. I’ve seen first hand that dogs with a lot of titles aren’t always the best wild bird dog in the box, or even second or third. If you want a tough Texas bird dog get one from someone that guides or hunts dogs in the same terrain that you do. With the internet there are a lot of choices and everyone’s selling dogs all over the country. I beleive champion bred dogs have plenty of merit but back in the day we always bred a great wild bird dog to another great wild bird dog and all of your buddies got a pup. Most of them turned out like we wanted.

It might help but you can never bet on it. It's not pointers, but my friend with the red setters have full brothers but not litter mates. We always put this one down in what we call the grass burr field.



He has a lot more bold traits. He's caught and killed two moccasins near their country house and been bitten by both. He's a great bird finder.

Here is his older brother.

How else are you going to pick your pups? Nothing is guaranteed. If you bred that tough footed setter to another tough footed setter and that’s all you wanted. I’d expect to get a litter of dogs that didn’t slow down for foot problems.

The good thing about dogs is you’re not married to them. If the OP has a dog he doesn’t like, he needs to get rid of it and find one that he wants. There’s plenty of people that will take a wash out dog and think it’s the best dog that’s ever hit the ground. Especially in the Metroplex.

They are home to stay when they come home with me.

Why?

How do you have great dogs if you keep the OK ones?

I didn’t say I wasn’t happy with the gyp, I just deal with the issues. Some will out grow them. She has more good traits that outweigh the bad ones. Besides, I don’t like losing money. I’d never recoup my investment with her. I’m just trying to figure out choices for another dog, and won’t be a puppy.
If I was guiding for a living and raising litters, dog trading would be an everyday thing.

I've only had a couple that were constantly beaten in the field. I had a couple that grew out of their softness, and two very late starters. All my bloodlines have been champion bloodlines.

Mike have you tried booting her? Look on youtube there's a video where they use motor cycle inner tubes. Cheap and open in front to let sand and dirt out.
Scalebuster some of us get attached to these mutts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIuqLw8_hH0

I have been fortunate to have access to places the last 2 seasons that were pretty much free of sand burrs, so no need to boot the pointer. The issue has been with pencil cactus and mesquite thorns ,boots won’t do much to stop them. I’ve got a bag full of boots I use when hunting down south. Booting my dogs was normal procedure before every hunt.

I hope she does grow out of it. I have a little gyp right now that came close to being shot several times. I thought she didn’t want to hunt. I gave up on her at one point. She now puts more birds in the bag than any mutt I have, she doesn’t run big but never needs a shock collar or even a scolding. Like my buddy says she’s the anchor of our team. I’ll never give up on one until 3 years again( I have before.) I kept her because my wife loves her so much. She’s like a a Hoover vacuum on singles and she found her fair share of coveys this year because her nose is so good. She acts like a totally different animal than she did as a Pup.

The last hour of this season we let her hunt by herself. She was in the zone. She found 3 coveys and We killed 11 bird over her. She’s not a sissy any more, she prefers to hunt alone, or with a dog that doesn’t need to be hollered at a lot. She still doesn’t like a dog sniffing around her but will hunt fine with another gyp.

Should have known but just wantd to ask

It comes down to conditioning the pads. I don’t mean putting on tuff foot or equivalent. That does very little IMO. Road your dogs on gravel 2or 3times a week.

Conditioned pads won’t stop mesquite thorns. The sand burrs my dogs have had issues with end up between the pads

This^^^^^^^

Way back in the day I had two out of Fiddlers Pride. We'd pull up to a particular farm and buddy would say "turn loose the burr dogs".

Rockacre blood is as close as you'll get to those dogs, and that's probably gettin scarce.

My toughest britt will run with any pointer, takes the heat great, tough as nails, sand burrs shut him down.

Why would you subject the dogs to that in the first place? Just boot them?

Every place I hunt has burrs, prickly pear or mesquite...thats just quail country in Texas. Boot them and don't worry about what color their pads are. Just my $0.02

I don’t boot any of mine and never had an issue. Have hunted some chinery that had a lot of grass burrs that slowed them down and might should have booted, but we pushed through it. However I did get a red setter given to me that was supposedly a great hunter many years back and she couldn’t go 2 feet with out running on three paws. She was worthless without boots and really was still pretty worthless with boots, but she was pretty if that counts.

Cause we were 20 something year old rookies, visiting OK from TN, and had never seen a sand burr. Today I carry boots in the truck, but SW KS is about only place we run into them up here.

My experience and i know that I have only been at it 30 years is that most dogs can handle grass burrs for 2 to 3 dany and then their feet get so tender they can"t go. So my advice is if you are hunting more than 2 days in burrs boot on day one

If only someone could patent a dependable boot that is easier to put on and it would stay on. You go to booting 5-6 dogs a morning now and that becomes a little like work. I just try to get my dogs to stay off the farm roads and just tough through it.

I use the inner tubes taped on with duct tape. I haven't in the past, but next time will also tape the front opening shut as briars do work their way in.