As a kid, I had a black and white Springer Spaniel as my bird dog. Got her for my 16th birthday. One cool thing (or at least I thought it was cool) was her tail was not docked. The breeders didn't want to spend the money for the litter so they left all the tails long. I thought it was great because I could see her tail a lot better in the tall weeds and know when she was getting birdy. Anyone who has ever hunted behind a flushing dog knows how important it is to read the dog and to get ready when you see the dog getting birdy.......explosion is soon to happen. Different kind of hunting for sure and luckily she didn't hunt out of range unless the bird was running. She was a great dog and a natural at turning the birds back into me and making the "squeeze play". I killed a lot of birds over her. She wouldn't retrieve Woodcock though.....would just stand on them until I retrieved them myself. I didn't complain too much. 
