Pointing dog

[1][2] Gundogs are traditionally divided into three classes: retrievers, flushing dogs, and pointing breeds.

The dog would freeze or set (as in Setter) and allow the hunter to throw the net over the game before it flushed.

This distinction likely arose because while the British developed breeds which specialized in tasks such as pointing, flushing, and retrieving from land or water, in Continental Europe, the same dog was trained to be able to perform each of these tasks (albeit less effectively).

The North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association defines versatility as "the dog that is bred and trained to dependably hunt and point game, to retrieve on both land and water, and to track wounded game on both land and water."

Unlike the pure pointing and setting breeds, many versatile dogs were bred for working in dense cover, and traditionally have docked tails.