bird dog 
North American
noun
1A gun dog trained to retrieve birds.He is a great bird dog, and mouser, too, but not the most handsome dog ever....
- ‘I love running over Ripper the Bird Dog,’ I answered, referring to a sequence of events beginning with Aunt Pearl accidentally poisoning her husband's prize bird dog while trying to give the pesky poodle next door a ‘bitter pill.’
- I was too busy working and training bird dogs to try to earn a living for my family to be concerned with who was in the gallery and what they did for a living.
2 informal A talent scout.Whispers one bird dog who knows the lefty well: ‘He's a true Southerner, a NASCAR kinda guy, a big hunt-and-fish guy.’...
- One NFL bird dog tells the Spies he spent $350 on ducats-n-parking to watch every single Redskins training-camp practice.
- When a player with talent comes along, it's open season for scouts, agents and the buscadores, or bird dogs, who act as go-betweens and collect finder's fees when they deliver a young player to a scout or an agent.
verb
(bird-dog) [with object] informal Search out or pursue with dogged determination: reporters bird-dogged the candidates for several weeks...
- Scouting young talent starts with a network of vendors, racing personnel, manufacturers, series managers and even media members who bird-dog potential candidates.
- Powers doesn't disparage these lowly but mighty scriveners, writing that their greatest attributes are bird-dogging factual errors in the press, speaking in a vernacular, and having fun.
- I'm going to wait until I've bird-dogged this one over time before I come to any conclusions.