I'd recomend a labrador retriever. They are great dogs. If you really want to get picky people think the black lab is the best hunting dog, while a yellow is next and a chocolate lab is a house dog...I personally don't think this is true, i've seen plenty of good chocolate labs be good hunting dogs. We had a big male yellow lab and he was great for upland game or waterfowl hunting. When you pick out a pup make sure it's not the runt. We got the dominant pup and he turned out to be a bear to control even with a shock collar but when he was focused nothing got away from him. If you have experience w/ shepards you shouldn't have too much of a problem w/ a dominant dog. A small female is always nice to hutn with too, they are easy to control and will hunt forever. Also make sure that your dog doesn't have hip displasyia either I've heard some bad stories of people buying expensive dogs w/ great blood lines and then half the pups have problems (the owner of the litter sometimes will have the dogs tested before you purchase them for preemptive symptoms) Another nice thing about the labs is that they are good people dogs, very well tempered if you have it around kids who will wrestle with it and pull on the tail. Good luck choosing a dog it's always fun to have a new one in the house.
