As for Milo, the GSP mutt I picked up from the pound 2 year ago, she is turning into a pretty decent bird dog. She shows absolutely no ability to point but she will jump in the nastiest weed pile you have ever seen with a simple "Go on" command while you point where she should go. I knocked down a couple of birds from this command over the last couple of months.
There is also nothing as exhilarating as when your bird dogs locks onto a scent of a bird who was running and tracks it through some grass, just all jacked up on pheasant scent swerving all over, then eventually finds it and BOOM. The bird flies up, you blast it out of the air and the dog goes and finds it for you again.
Milo will also hunt for like 5 hours straight running 3 times as far as you walked and still have energy to burn playing with lady when she gets back to the farm house. I don't know how she does it.