I recall having a similar conversation with a well known trainer. He said there are excellent examples in a lot of breeds. You are looking for just one. You will increase the odds that you will find what you are looking for by finding the breed that is prevalent and proven in U.S. competitive dog trials, and that is well known to have the traits you are looking for.
Like many looking for a field dog, I looked into every breed that anyone mentioned. Saw a lot of great dogs from a lot of breeds, some very obscure here in the states. When it got down to it, more source of breeders, trainers, and individual dogs are available in mainstream U.S. field competition breeds. Even then, since I was looking for a trained dog, it was really hard to find what I was looking for in a search that took me all over the U.S. and took months.
As far as the AKC, I think they are trying to be all things to all types of dog owners and have lost their standing with some of the field dog people who have branched off. I have one dog that is AKC and the later dog is FDSB registered. Neither registrations mean much to me as a hunter with no competitive asperations. But, the FDSB one comes from a line of dogs that at least a few are FDSB Hall of Fame and repetive champions. My logic was that I had better odds that I'd end up with a dog that was a great hunter. We'll see.
The older Lab seems to come from a well campaigned line of trial dogs that has some popularity in the midwest competitions and she's turned out to be an outstanding upland hunter.
"...if you don't love your dog and think your's was the best, why would you keep the filthy beast?..."
