Early Starters vs Late Bloomers

I also like to see a dog burning up the woods at an early age, but an old saying stays on the back of my mind "Early to start, early to quit". I more or less let a prospect tell me when they are ready to start hunting. I will give them plenty of chances and exposure to show me that they are willing to perform, all the while, keying in on the littlest signs to try and make an educated decision on whether to keep the dog around or cut my losses. I am fairly emotionless on the whole process and try to completely disregard anything other than the dog’s performance on deciding whether or not to keep moving forward with the evaluation process.