Do y’all think having a female hunting dog “fixed” has any negative impact on her

I don’t. They do tend to gain some weight, but if you are training and working them regularly that shouldn’t be a problem.

We use to give hormone tablets every week to keep the bitches from coming into season, I don't know how hard it would be to get pills now.

No.

i have a male brittany, was worried about this as well. If anything it made him more focused in the field.

I have heard they will loose drive and become lazy. But I didn’t know if they were any truth to this.

Not true. The folks that say that are likely the ones that train one week before the season and then bitch when the dog doesn't do what they want.

I agree...

I had a good dog man tell me once that if he had an inkling that a potential buyer if his pups was gonna spay the female, he would not sell to him. He claims that in his experience the drive just wasn't there after the operation. I have no idea if that's true or not but that's what he claimed.

Dr. B

I am about to find out. I just had my 6 month old female "Juice" fixed yesterday. She has been wide open since day one be interesting to see how she responds

I nevervnoticed loss of drive in my lab after being neutered at age of 6. Only age slowed him down. He'll be 12 next week and he actually hunted all of 2017 dove season. Old guy moving slow this year. My 6yo female gsd was spayed at 3 after her hips were graded mild hd and wasn't going to breed her. And she's wide open today as she was a pup. She's a club level schutzhund dog and works 3x a week plus normal everyday work/use. She actual was used all of 2017 dove season also. She's a heck of a dove dog as she learned watching and training with the lab. Now my other working gsds' i won't know about N/S until i get their h/e xrayed and go from there. But if i was a betting man I'd bet on no it doesn't affect drive of done after maturity 2.5yo and up.