The art of choosing a bird dog is the subject of countless words—printed and spoken—including good-natured banter among friends. We bird dog owners dissect the subject with surgical precision, all based on the premise that there is one true answer: the perfect dog. For most of us, the path to our next (or first) bird dog is a journey taken with great care and caution and fraught with anxiety. After all, owning a hunting dog is a big commitment, and nobody wants to get it wrong.

If modern bird hunters all had the same requirements and preferences for their dogs, we’d have a single bird dog breed. The Common Bird Dog would range at the preferred distance, move at the preferred speed, handle birds by pointing or flushing in the preferred manner, and would, of course, have the preferred coat, color, size, and personality. The sheer number of different bird dog breeds, however, points to the reality of human opinion.