lauralee -  I would pay closer attention to the pedigree and the parents in judging a dogs potential abilities more so than whether they point at 8 or 10 weeks.  If there are good hunting dogs in the  pedigree and the parents are both good hunting dogs the odds are the pup will be a good hunting dog too.  The other thing I look at is how outgoing and confident the pup is at 8 weeks.  If a dog is really shy at 8 weeks, I probably wouldn't pick that dog for a dog I want to use for a performance event whether it is hunting or obedience.  That said, Halo appeared shy to most folks when they saw her as a puppy.  She, however, was not shy, but was quiet.  She has turned into an excellent show and obedience dog. Her ability to focus and reason in the obedience ring is unbelieveable. If you had ask me 6 months ago whether Halo would make a good hunting dog, I would have probably said not.  However, I recently decided to introduce her to birds.  She wasn't quite sure what that was all about on the first few pigeons and I thought well I was right, but after a few more pigeons she got the hang of it.  I then took her out with Ringo to find quail.  Again she wasn't sure what we were out their doing until Ringo found the first quail and I brought her over and let her scent it.  Then the light bulb came on and she quickly found and pointed her own quail.  Will she be as bird crazy as Ringo?  Who knows, but the instinct is there, it just took a little patience and about 6 pigeons to bring it out. Both Ringo and Halo come out of very strong hunting lines, with many Duals in their pedigree. 

Certainly so.  Pups start pointing when something triggers the pointing instinct.  If they don't get exposure to birds or something else (like wing on a string games or even butterflies) then that instinct isn't triggered for a long time.

That is why it's very important to get pups onto game birds as early and often as possible.  The sooner the pointing instinct is triggered, the sooner you can start working on making it work for you.

I've trained dogs that never even had an opportunity to see or smell a bird until they were two, three, four years old.  Obviously it takes longer with them vs a pup that gets bird exposure starting at eight to 12 weeks but it can still be done IF the instinct is there.

So, just for the record, when I pick a pup I look at temperament/personality, conformation, nose, how they interact with people and their littermates, opinion of the breeder, etc.   However, the final ingredient in my picking a puppy is black magic, I have to connect with them too.  So far, I have been happy with my picks.  None have been perfect, but they have all been perfect for me.

Not to mention that you are probably going to have to make your pick before 8 weeks or you are going to get what's left.  This was a very good discussion with great points mentioned.

Well, just like the Natural Ability test...testing the natural ability...if the dog scores less than a minimum score in either one of the things they look at - nose, search, cooperation, desire, tracking, water, pointing (I think those are it), it won't pass the test.

birdman: don't matter to me...I think I got my answers 

 

What you are missing is that when the instinct kicks in is going to vary a lot from one pup to the next.  Personally I don't want an 8 week old that slams a point and won't move.  I much prefer at that age that they are really driven to dive in, chase, catch it etc.  Those are the dogs that are going to typically be better in the end.  Remember pointing is only a small part of the total package of the GSP.  Without the prey drive, desire to catch game, and to carry it around you won't have any idea as to the natural retrieving instinct.

I've been through more GSP's over the last 30 years than I can count, and I've never had one that didn't start pointing on it's own at some point when they'd had enough exposure to birds.

Those that have the most natural point we end up usually spending far more time with working on the retrieve.

Those that have the most prey drive and retrieving instinct we usually take longer staunching up and steadying.

You aren't necessarily wrong wanting to see them point at 8 weeks, but in all honestly it's pretty irrelevant with respect to what you'll end up with as a finished product.  Some of the best dogs I've ever seen as adults never pointed anything till they were well over six months of age.  Many that started pointing literally right out of the box at 8 weeks ended up not being worth much as adults.

If you get stuck on one thing, and then try to pigeon hole the dog/pup into a specific time table for achieving certain goals you are going to miss out on a lot of great dogs and probably be extremely frustrated along the way.

Nah, not gonna shoot your this time.  We would miss you around hear.  Who would keep us on our toes? 

I too agree with Wildrose and not just for evaluating dogs for hunting either.  I would say the same applies for any type of performance work you will do.  Allot of things go into making any kind of performance dog and you gotta look at the package.  At 8 weeks it is still pretty much a gamble, but you can up the odds by evaluating all the variables.