The Reasons to Consider a Versatile Hunting Dog | Written by Jennifer Wapenski

I knew that having a well-trained, versatile dog would improve our game recovery rate, which was one of the many reasons we’d decided to get a bird dog in the first place. I understood this from firsthand experience: I clearly remember shooting a duck in my first season and, after an hour of searching the reeds, I finally had to resign myself to empty-handed defeat. It stung to know that I’d taken a life and let it go to waste. I became hesitant to pull the trigger after that experience, being deeply afraid of another senseless waste.

But despite knowing that a dog would assist in my own bird recoveries, I had no idea how many birds we’d find that had been left behind by other hunters. In this past season alone, the pup found a couple of pheasants, a few mallards, and a snow goose – all either fatally wounded or freshly killed – and thankfully prevented from unnecessary suffering or waste. To me, that’s true versatility: bringing home game regardless of the circumstances.