Twenty-five years ago the fashion was to decry driving game, and to hold up, as the good old sporting plan, the use of gun-dogs in the pursuit of partridges and grouse. But this was only a fashion of the fashionless. Shooters were not so childish as to decline to shoot in one method because they could not do it in the other, and half the grouse moors and three-quarters of the partridge ground then, as now, could not be worked with pointers and setters without sacrifice of a large portion of the game. Either it was driven away for wiser neighbours to bag, or else it died of old age after doing as much harm to its successors as any early Hanoverian king of England—that is, as much as possible. The reasons for the growth of wildness are many, but in dealing with dogs it is only necessary to take the birds as we find them, and to get them in the most sporting fashion that is left open to us.

At the same time, it may be remarked that the Press changed completely round after the publication of the Badminton shooting books, and it became as unfashionable to write of shooting over dogs as it had been to write of driving.

But the views expressed in the Badminton books were drawn from Yorkshire and Norfolk, and the result was that this time both sportsmen and the Press attempted to force an imitation of those methods that in those counties had only been adopted as a choice of two evils, when birds became so wild that it was a question of driving or no game. This fashion has made the act of shooting take rank above the all-embracing “sportsmanship” in the minds of those who have grasped at and acquired the first-named part without aiming at the whole. But this view is not likely to last longer than the mechanical part of shooting remains a difficulty. It is little likely to do so for long, with so many shooting schools, where clay birds can be sent over the gun in streams at all angles and all speeds. Here the management of two, three, or four guns can be learnt, ambition can be served, and after that a decline in keenness will generally set in. One of the greatest and best shooters of the seventies and eighties, one who carried most weight in the Badminton book, seems to have almost given up, and it may fairly be assumed that when the mechanical part of shooting is once gained to perfection, it leaves no room for further ambition.

But this is far from being true of shooting over dogs. There is so much more to learn than the mere mechanical part of shooting. Whether one breeds dogs, breaks them, works them, or has them worked by others, they are a constant source of anticipation, and anticipation in sport is of far greater interest than realisation.

Possibly one does no good to the interest of anticipation by attempting to assist sportsmen to the choice or breaking of better dogs. Those the author began with were his ideals until he knew of better, and a super-ideal would be useless were it not impossible. But when a poor team of dogs may lead to the abandonment of canine assistance in shooting, it is another matter, and everybody who knows the pleasure given by dogs should strive to improve the race.

For the last forty years there have been held public field trials on game for pointers and setters. Whether these events have been worked off upon paired partridges in the spring, or contested by finding young broods of grouse just before the opening of the season, they have given breeders and sportsmen the chance of breeding by selection for pace, nose, quartering, and breaking. Unfortunately, they have left out stamina. There have been what were at the time called “stamina trials,” but as they were sometimes won by slow dogs they did not merit the high-sounding title, and for real stamina trials one has to go to America.

Trials for ability to stay are much more necessary now than ever before, because the dog shows have ceased to be any assistance to breeders of working dogs. When it was possible to compare at shows the external forms of pointers and setters that had succeeded at field trials, they were of some use, on the ground that true formation is suggestive of stamina. But since separate breeds of dogs have been evolved by the shows for the shows, the working dogs are either not sent to them, or do not win if they are sent, so that the show-winning pointer or setter is taken to be bad and of a degraded sort unless the contrary is proved. This is a great pity, for there is no doubt that stamina is the foundation of almost every other virtue in the pointer and setter.

A dog that cannot go on long has the period of his daily breaking restricted, he does not learn wisdom, he does not gain enough experience to make a proper use of his scenting powers, and if, at last, success in breaking is achieved, then the reward for labour expended is half an hour’s fast work instead of half a day of it.

This means that the shooter must have a large kennel and one or two kennel men, instead of a small kennel easily looked after by a gamekeeper without hindrance to his other work. The question then becomes serious, and those who live in London or in the neighbourhood of big towns usually have not the necessary room for the healthy maintenance of a large kennel of dogs. If they take moors in Scotland or Ireland, the kennels there are usually only of service in the shooting season, especially if the moors are not taken upon long lease. Scotland is bad wintering for dogs bred in England, and although it must not be forgotten that the Duke of Gordon, Lord Lovat, and many other sportsmen wintered their famous kennels of setters in Scotland, their dogs came to have coats much thicker than are to be seen now upon setters—that is, they had less feather but more body covering. At least, that was the opinion formed by the writer on paying a visit to the late Lord Lovat’s kennel in the early seventies. At that time this kennel and that of Lord Cawdor were the only representatives of the old black-white-and-tan kennel of the Duke of Gordon, although the blood of the latter sort was widely spread as crosses in other races of setters. This was obviously so in the black-and-tan kennel of the late Lord Rosslyn (who introduced bloodhound to get the colour), and in that of many English setter kennels. They were known as English setters, and shown as such, only because there was a mistaken idea that Gordons were black-and-tan, without white.

Stamina, then, must be improved if dogs are to be generally popular where they can be used. But some few of the winning field trial workers would look foolish after 30 minutes’ experience of a bed of strong heather. Shooters at Aldridge’s annual sale are frequently observed purchasing two or three little highly broken weeds that could not possibly give satisfaction. There is often a great deal of hustle, fuss, and fictitious pace about the very little dogs that are now sometimes bred, but their bolt is soon shot, and they are a hindrance to sport for the rest of the day. The old dogs that were regarded as stayers did not look to be in such a mighty hurry; they had a long easy stride, with no up and down action (it is that which tires). As being much bigger, they were probably much faster than the little hustler division now so numerous, and some of them could keep up the pace all day. Many could do a half-day’s work, and some of those that were not regarded as stayers were brilliantly fast and slashingly bold for two hours in the morning and another two in the afternoon. The author remembers one of the latter that after winning the National Championship at the Shrewsbury Meeting in the spring put out his shoulder. The mend was a bad one, and although this accident destroyed the stamina it did not interfere much with the pace of this extraordinary dog. Afterwards, for some years, he could beat the best in a most successful field trial kennel for 20 minutes, but then he was done for. What has been said about the uselessness of non-stayers may be emphasised by the experience of this dog, for, although he was often taken out in the spring as a “trial horse” for young ones, it was thought useless to put him into a shooting team for Scotland. That is to say, the most brilliant 20 minutes worker was useless then, and is so now.

It is not often that absolute proof of the value of any individual points in the dog is obtained. But here was one, proving that shoulders have little effect upon speed, but are all-important for staying. When Mr. A. E. Butter’s Faskally Bragg was winning Champion honours on the bench and in the field too, we had the exhibition of a heavy-shouldered dog winning at the shows, where true formation for staying was unknown, and also in the field trials, where it was never tried. Nose, speed, and beauty of attitude in pointing and backing placed this dog at the top, but had there been real stamina trials he would never have been heard of. Once the writer saw him on a freshly-turned sandy plough, where he was hunted against Mr. A. T. Williams’ very small pointer, Rose of Gerwn. The latter went 100 yards for every 20 that Bragg tumbled over. Yet here was your show Champion beaten to a standstill, on the question of external form alone, by an ugly-headed little pointer that could not have won a prize at a show in a class by herself. Yet for heart and courage, for pace, and probably for stamina, there have been few to equal her in the last decade.

The dog-show setters are most beautiful creatures, but the points on which they win here and in America are not the points that a sportsman requires. “Feather” goes a long way towards victory, but in America they shear their setters before the shooting season opens. The reason for this is that the burrs there are not only a nuisance, as they sometimes are here, but a total prevention of sport. Any coat that collects them brings the dog to a standstill in a few minutes. They are much smaller, but the spikes are sharper and stronger than those of the English plant.

Slack loin is only a drawback at the shows, but it stops a dog in work. A long, refined head is a beauty at the shows, but it holds no brains that amount to anything. But worse than all this is the fact that the hunting instinct has lapsed in the show breeds. To be induced to range they must be excited. Now, in the truly bred pointer or setter you may start by repressing, go on by directing, and end by many “dressings,” but you cannot weaken the hunting instinct, however you try to do it. In the former sort you have to wind up the clock and put the hands right at every turn, in the latter you have to put the regulator right once and the works will do the rest. It is impossible to endow with instinct at all, and especially is it impossible when excitement has taken the place of the hunting habit. You have only the excitement on which to work to re-create a love of hunting, at the same time that you have to repress excitement in the interests of breaking.

It is not very wonderful that show-bred dogs cannot win field trials. To ask a breaker to educate them is a little worse than to turn Irish salmon into the Thames and expect them to come back there. When the last Thames salmon was killed the last instinct to return to the Thames vanished from Salmo salar. You can no more get it back than you can make a field trial dog out of a show-bred one, or bring the dead instinct to life.

Having got the right blood in the form of a puppy of ten or twelve months old, and one that has learnt no bad manners at walk or in some bad breaker’s hands, there is a straight road to success, but one that is not always taken. The first thing to teach a puppy is to understand all you say to it. Until this has been accomplished, the loudest shouts of “Down charge,” “Drop,” or any other order, are in danger of being mistaken for just the opposite to what is intended. Most of the clever breakers at field trials have unique signals, invented by themselves, and practised by nobody else. It is a good way there, and in shooting, because your dog is not then confused by orders given by other people. One man drops his dog by bringing his stick to the ground, and signals it forward by holding up his hand. The general practice is just the reverse. It does not matter what signals or words of command are used if they always mean the same for the dog.

The more often orders are given, and obedience to them is enforced, the more instinctive becomes the dog’s habit of obedience; but against this must be placed the fact that a puppy should never be tired of a lesson. A lesson, before entry on game, should always be only a part of a game at romps to the dog. Consequently, it must not go on so long that the puppy tires of romping, or be repeated so often in the game that the youngster thinks it “a bore.”

Obedience is one thing, prompt obedience quite another; and it is the latter that serves the sportsman, not the former. It is the last stage of hand breaking to ensure prompt obedience when hesitation or unwillingness has gone before. These two stages generally occur in dropping to hand and gun lessons, and in answering whistle, all of which will require a little pushing and pulling force to be used in the early stages, until the meaning of the teacher is grasped by the pupil. Up to this point the order has to be repeated many times as the force is being used, in order that the pupil may grasp the meaning, which he will only do gradually. But after the lesson has once been learnt it is a bad plan to give any order twice. It should be once only, followed by obedience or punishment. This sounds severe, but it is the method for saving the necessity for severity in the future.

After the hand-breaking stage comes temptation during excitement, which is a very different thing from mere “cussedness,” as the Americans call it, in hand breaking, where a pupil only disobeys for the sake of disobedience. That is the reason why prompt and instinctive obedience has to be obtained before the canine pupil goes out into the fields or on to the moors, and sees game. When this excitement begins, all hand-breaking lessons may be forgotten on the spur of the moment, and yet it is extremely important that they should not be, and that there should be no necessity for punishment, and as little as possible for restraint.

It is to avoid these misfortunes that hand breaking should culminate in forced promptitude on the pupil’s part. Up to this time your puppy has dropped and answered the whistle because it pleases you and does not hurt him, and he has done it, possibly, as if he thought you took a particular interest in seeing how long he could be about it. But in the field, and in the presence of hares, such deliberation is a premium on forgetfulness of the breaker’s existence. Then a hare is very likely chased, and a season’s unnecessary work, and of a negative value, has become obligatory in an instant.

On the other hand, if the last lessons in hand breaking are of a kind which make the puppy think that a word and a blow are not separated by distance between the man and dog, hares will never prove a trouble or distance a danger in the field or on the moor.

The way the author brought about prompt obedience was by trickery. Puppies romping in lines were ordered to drop, then the lines would be passed round a tree in front of them, which would, by its position, give a free run to the dogs of 40 or 50 yards when they were called on. But the instant before they reached the limit of the cord the order to drop would be given, so that any hesitation would inflict a sharp tumble by reason of the full limit of the cord having been reached at a gallop. One lesson of that sort gives the dog a sense of the wonderful powers of his breaker, who may be hundreds of yards away when the sudden power is exerted; and about two or three such experiences, in the last week of hand breaking, give the man in the field apparently mesmeric powers over his pupil. It need hardly be pointed out that, to succeed, the dog must expect, or suspect, no trap. Consequently, he must be regularly exercised in his cord, and the trick must not be repeated until the former attempt has been totally forgotten. This can be the more readily brought about by several times dropping the dogs in the ordinary way, and allowing them to find themselves free when the order to come forward is given. In the mind of the pupil, it must not be the cord, but the breaker’s order, that does the jerking.

Usually the author has associated this jerk with the explosion of a pistol, of course after making sure that the dogs did not fear a pistol, and were not “gun-shy,” or to be made so. See what power this gives a breaker at distances beyond the travel of his voice or whistle! A puppy is ranging beautifully half a mile away nearly, and cannot hear your whistle reminding it of its distance. In the contrariness of canine nature, that is the exact instant the only hare in the parish will select to jump up before your puppy’s nose. The strange form and sudden appearance, as from nowhere, will surprise; another instant, the ancestral wild beast of prey will take possession of your cherished pet, now nearly in the next parish, and you would be helpless to intervene but for the gun in your hand and for its associations with the tree and the cord in the park. You fire at the exact instant before canine surprise is succeeded by a burst of coursing speed, and your pupil is glued to the ground, while your only hare is preserved from extinguishing her race and your chances of a broken dog as well.

The worst of permitting puppies to chase once is that they soon learn to chase the trail, or “drag,” of hare when none has been seen. It is difficult to be sure when a puppy is doing this; but never wait until you are sure, is the author’s suggestion: fire at once. Then, if your young dog has been broken on practical lines, you by one operation serve two ends, for you stop a chase and rebuke your dog if there was a hunt, and if not, you have only given an unnecessary lesson in dropping to shot, which generally does good and never any harm, for it disturbs game far less than whistling or shouting.

It is not intended here to repeat the elementary advice about hand breaking. It is much more simple to say that a puppy must be talked to like a little child. It will be much quicker than the child to take a meaning, but it remains a child, if a quick one, all the days of its life.

If your puppy has unfortunately learnt to chase hares or to kill chickens before you begin with it, severe measures will have to be taken to cure these crimes; but this should not be done until after the pupil has been entered to and become fond of game, so that it is essential to enter a hare-chaser where there are no hares, and a chicken-killer where there are no roosters. The love of one kind of game is half a cure of a too energetic fondness for another, and in order to set up this love of game to its fullest extent, your pupil must neither see hare nor think hare until the entry on game is complete. If you thrash one minute for chasing chickens, the next your pupil will be half-hearted about finding partridges, and will probably blink them when found.

The author was very successful at field trials, and in having perfectly obedient high rangers of wonderful courage and endurance, and this success was attained on the principle of never giving the pupils a chance to do wrong until they were well established in the practice of doing right. That is to say, until they would quarter fast and freely, and find and point game without caution, and back each other at any distance, they were not tempted by the sight or scent of hares, or not by intention. Afterwards they have to learn to hunt for partridges in the midst of hares and with the scent of them everywhere, and it is only by their extra fondness for winged game that they will hunt across and across the foot scent of dozens of hares without taking any notice of it, and will nevertheless point the body scent of a hare when they find the beast in its seat.

All this comes to the high-couraged dog practically by nature, provided the breaker begins at the right end of the education and takes step by step, as suggested here in default of a better method. There will be no shouting and storming, or whipcord and wailing, but a steady progress towards perfection, granting always that the pupil has nose, sense, pace, and stamina.

Pointing and backing may or may not come naturally when the youngster finds that he cannot catch his birds after a few tries, but they are easily encouraged to come sooner by the use of the voice on the hand-broken pupil, or by the use of the check cord. It is, however, just as well to let a puppy chase the birds until he naturally points them. This is education of the best kind in “locating” the game, which implies the quick recognition of the difference between body and foot scents of birds. In the same way it is a good plan to let a puppy run in a few times to a pointing dog to flush and chase his game. This is not doing wrong, for up to this stage the dog will have received no intimation that chasing game and flushing it are wrong, except that hereditary instinct may prompt the puppy to point and also to back.

It is not well to insist upon instant dropping to wing, until a young dog has learnt how to point steadily and to draw up boldly to the game at the side of his breaker. This becomes a nerve-trying task if a sudden rush of wings is also associated with orders to “drop,” and it is well to confirm the natural attitude on point, which will generally be beautiful, before running a risk of the young dog learning to confuse the point with the order to drop to wing.

The rush in, on the rise of game, is better first checked by the hand upon the collar, or on the cord, if one is used. There is no use in calling “To-ho” to a pointing dog, or in using any words of caution. A broken dog requires no caution, and a partly broken or unbroken one is to be taught to rely upon his nose, and not on the breaker’s voice, for his knowledge of when he should point. If the breaker knows best, where is the use of the dog? If the latter points or draws and then moves on, let him do it; it is educational, and one mistake may prevent a hundred; but if you “to-ho” a false point you are making a bad dog by it, and if you “to-ho” when there is game you are teaching the dog that you are going to tell him when to point, and that you certainly cannot judge of by the dog’s manner if he does not know himself.

One of the principal things to teach is quartering, and this is often the natural outcome of walking directly up wind with your pupil. It is generally instinctive to the well-bred dog to cross the wind to and fro. But this natural instinct will be unhinged by any change of direction, so that a breaker who started his puppy in different and changing methods, in regard to the wind, would find him ranging, but not quartering, and would observe the puppy at the end of a cast as likely to turn down wind as up. For this reason, until a confirmed range has been established by walking into the wind, with the puppy beating from side to side of his breaker, no other method of beating a field should be attempted. Even with the precaution of always walking into the wind, the puppy is not unlikely to turn down wind at one end or the other of his cast. That is a bad fault in itself, and bespeaks flighty disposition, and a bad nose besides. There is always scent of kinds, we may suppose, up wind of the puppy, which ought to turn his investigating nose into the wind instead of the other way, as so often happens. The breaker may be troubled to correct this habit, but, as it is partly owing to the dog’s love of his breaker that he forgets the game and turns back, it can be cured by making the puppy more fond of finding game, and by tiring him, until he has to think of the nearest way. But as for other reasons tiring a puppy in the breaking season is bad, when no game is being shot, the trouble can be overcome by the breaker walking near the hedge on the side of the field the pupil turns the wrong way, and then, by the teacher making haste as the puppy approaches that side, he will be automatically turned the right way. Strangely, most puppies turn wrong at one end and not at the other. If they turn wrong at both ends, they are probably hopeless fools that are not worth breaking.

A want of good “backing” may be very common from many different causes. It generally comes from an absence of interest in the point of another dog, and consequently is more noticed in spring breaking than in autumn shooting. If dogs are left to themselves in autumn, they will nearly always back, or run in and take another’s point. The latter is objectionable, and may cause flushing by either dog, or by both. But it shows interest in the point, and that is what the breaker has to work upon. In the spring breaking not infrequently a puppy will go half a mile round in order to avoid being obliged to see and back a point. That is because nothing of excitement ever comes of a back before the shooting season, and in order to make a perfect backer of a dog of this character (one that is obviously plucky and no fool) he must have his interest created in the other’s point. This is very easy to accomplish. One of the chief causes of bad backing is, naturally, false pointing. Like the man who is always crying “Wolf!” the imaginative dog is not believed by his fellows, and when pointing dogs are made to back up false points they perform the operation as an act of unwilling obedience, and do not assume those attitudes that are so pleasing in the willing dog. It is therefore quite impossible to have good backing in a brace of dogs, if one, or both, false point. But there is a way in which a useless false pointer (and they all are useless) can be made to give a good lesson in backing and one not easily forgotten, that should not be often, if at all, repeated. It is a trick on the dog to be educated, and as such must not be found out, otherwise its virtue will be gone.

The plan is to get a wing-clipped partridge and to fasten to its wing a leather strap, and to this latter a string of 20 yards length with a peg at its end, around which the string can be wound. All together can be put into a cartridge bag, for choice one of waterproofed canvas, because it is not certain whether, in any other sort, the dog will discover what is being carried on the shoulder of his trainer, and it is important he should not discover. Then it is necessary to hunt the prospective backer with the false pointer. The latter will soon get a point, which the puppy will ignore or investigate. In either case, wait until the pupil has done the field and comes back; he will then again see the false point, and before he gets down wind of it he must be dropped by hand. He is by this time “cock sure” his companion is pointing nothing; but in his absence you have unrolled the string from your partridge and put the peg in the ground at a place up wind of the pointing dog, but down wind of the spot where you intend to drop the pupil. You have taken the partridge out of its bag, and, having placed its head under its wing, you have given it two or three swings round, so as to make it giddy. Then you have placed it on the ground lying on that wing under which is its head, and there you have left it. It will lie quite still for a quarter of an hour, if need be. Having gone back to the peg, which must be between the partridge and your young dog for obvious reasons, you give the string a snatch, and up flutters the partridge in full view. The bird will make a racket when he finds himself caught, and will flutter a good deal. When you are quite sure your dog will not join in the chase, you will make as much fuss about catching the bird as possible. You will not let the puppy see what you do when you return the bird to the bag, and you will not let the young dog go down wind of the spot on which the partridge has been fluttering. A clever dog will detect what has happened if you do either, and will take no interest afterwards if it should be necessary to repeat the lesson. After this, go straight home with the dogs in couples, and next day have out for the young one a better companion, that will not false point. It is twenty to one that the first point made in the sight of the youngster will be backed with all the vivacity of a point. In this way you will discover that one good lesson, properly given with no mistake in it, will do more than a year’s drudgery in stopping, scolding, and whipping, when the pupil ought to back.

There are many pointers and setters that will back naturally, but this trait almost implies that they have not as much capacity for finding game as the neighbours that they back up in their points. Indeed, the better the dog is naturally, the greater is the difficulty in persuading him to a spirit of diffidence. For these very good animals the plan has been found the most useful by the author, and a triumph of breaking is to make a perfect backer of a dog so good that he rarely sees a point, because he finds nine-tenths of the game himself. In order to do it, there is a necessity for reducing his own estimation of himself, and luckily this can be done in the manner related without in the smallest degree reducing the finding powers and ranging energy of the most superior dogs.

The Uses of Field Trials for Pointers and Setters

Once in a decade it is possible to see at a field trial a bit of work so good that it is safe to say the doer of it will win the stake—it is safe, although when the opinion is formed the rest of the entries have not been seen at work. It would not be safe to say so when acting as judge, or to act upon any such notion. But the writer has ventured the opinion on several occasions when others have been judging, and has always been right. The occasions arise only in those rare circumstances when the scent is as good as can be, and the dog does things that only the very best can do in the most favourable circumstances.

Generally it is unsafe to form any opinions except by comparing the work of one dog with that of another at the same time and place. That is what field trials enable; and it does not follow that when only moderate work is done at them that the doers are only ordinary. Field trials are often held in conditions of scent and weather when the wise shooter would go home. The competitors at these meetings are always picked dogs at home, and have generally beaten “good trial horses” before they show in public. But when shooters go to a trial and unfavourably compare what they see there to experience at home, they may be right, but whenever this comparison has given them confidence enough to enter dogs the latter have invariably been disgraced, unless they happened to be of field trial winning blood. This really answers the question as to what use these institutions are.

On the other hand, it is by no means the most experienced field trial men who have the best chance of victory, provided the canine blood is the same for all competitors.

What natural selection and the survival of the fittest has done for the fox and other scent-hunting animals, field trial selection has done for pointers and setters since the first public trial was held in 1865. It is not contended that working dogs have improved over the whole of this period, but the vast superiority of the field trial breeds over others shows what all would have declined to if it had not been for the institutions that annually indicate the best.

But during the last half-dozen years there has been a general, and it is said unaccountable, lack of good brace work at the field trials. The author has satisfied himself of the reason of this strange lack of the highest exhibition of breaking at a time when the dogs are higher broken and more credit is given for breaking than ever before. This appears paradoxical, but the fact is that the premium on high breaking has led to the choice of dogs as sires and dams that are easy to break, and this again to the discounting of courage. Some worthy usurper, who became a rightful monarch, is said to have watched a spider attempt for nine times to fasten his web upon a coveted spot and succeed in the end. To hunt a brace of dogs properly, it is necessary to have material as persevering as the only spider in history. What is required is that your dogs should find all the game. In order that this should be done, they must beat all the ground, and there is always one corner in a field that nature induces the dogs to leave behind. The corner to right or left of the spot at which the dogs are started is sure to be slightly down wind of the starting-place. The natural tendency is to investigate up wind, and it may be necessary for a breaker to start his dogs ten or twenty times, and to call them back as often, before he can make them understand that they are to “sink the wind,” are to drop back, as it were, behind it, and do the usually neglected corner before pressing forward and investigating the scent of game that is probably all the time coming from up-wind of them. But it is only the very highest-couraged dogs that can be expected to give cheerful obedience during the constant interference that the teaching of this useful lesson involves. The point the author wishes to make is, that it is necessary to breed for courage and break for docility, and that this is exactly contrary to the breeding for docility that has been done. This process, which has been intended to improve breaking, has eliminated the best brace work and the best quartering.

It is not intended to convey the idea that very close quartering is a good feature. The dog should fully occupy his time, and range to the capacity of his nose. To say a dog is going too wide may easily be a great mistake. It is often said that a pointer or setter misses ground, but although some people think that game cannot be missed if ground is beaten in geometric figures, with parallel lines near together, it is often to be observed that those which most obviously leave no ground behind them are just those that leave birds behind them. If we could only smell as dogs do for ten minutes, we should understand them much better. It seems wonderful that these animals can often detect a pair of little partridges at 150 to 200 yards away, while, even in our own hands, we men cannot smell the birds at all. The variety in the olfactory powers of the dog sinks almost at one end to that of the man, but at the other is entirely beyond his power of thinking. Consequently, when we set any limitation on the width of ranging, or the width between the parallels in the range, we are often asking the dogs to beat the ground twice or three times, which is opposed to the best canine nature. The author is careless how much ground dogs leave behind provided they leave no game behind. Consequently, if they start fairly, so as to get the wind of the near corners, they may be assumed to know the measure of their own noses, and to beat wide or narrow, and with parallel quarterings near, or far apart, as necessary. The wider in both cases the better, provided they leave no game behind. If they commit this fault, they are only wild, and may be assumed to be scamping their work.

It has often happened that the most capable dogs in a stake have run great risks of being thrown out for an appearance of scamping their ground, when, as a matter of fact, they were leaving no game behind, and knew it. This generally happens when the scent is extra good and the dogs know that they can take what are regarded as liberties in their range. But when scent is bad, on hot August days, and the pollen is flying from the heather bloom, these wide rangers will be narrow enough, and will be the only dogs that can find at all. Then those that have had for safety to hunt in narrow parallels in good scent, will be as unable as a man to smell a grouse. It is for this reason that the writer, when judging at a field trial, would never condemn wide or forward ranging unless game was actually proved to be left behind. Quartering is the means to an end, and not the end itself, and it was far more effectively done at field trials years ago, before people began to treat it as an end in itself. Since then brace work has declined, and brace work had always been that in which it was expected, and happened, that the winners should find everything on their ground, and neither flush nor miss anything.

The best natural quarterers (or dogs, for that matter) will invariably be those that alter their methods to suit the occasion. When game is scarce, they will hunt wide, because, in the absence of the scent of game pervading the atmosphere, they can detect the presence of the game at far greater distances than when the scent is everywhere.

They will hunt wide also in good scent.

Conversely, in bad scent they will hunt closely, and when birds are plentiful, or scattered and lying close, they will do so also, and to the author this variation of beat to suit the occasion is by far the greatest proof of nose and sense.

Everybody likes to see a dog draw nicely and sharply up a good distance, and point, knowing precisely where the game is; but these appearances are often deceptive. Nobody knows how far the birds have run, or how much of the draw was due to the foot scent and how little to the body scent. These appearances of good nose have to be taken in conjunction with the manner of beating the ground, before a just estimate of the olfactory powers can be quickly formed. This is made all the more difficult, because a dog of poor courage will generally draw to game as soon as he detects foot scents, whereas the highest-couraged and best quarterers will often gallop over those scents, recognising but scouting the temptation, and will only draw up to body scent.

The difference between foot and body scents is not very well understood by anyone except the dog, and not always by him. Very much nonsense has been written on the subject. The author has noticed comments in the Press showing that the writers believed the foot scent to be an emanation from the feet in contact with the ground. The foot scent is the path of scent left by an animal that has moved away. The author has observed it left by a flying grouse, and also by a diving otter. In neither case could the feet have had anything to do with the matter. But that does not help us to know how the dog detects the difference between the volatile matter that comes direct from the game to the dog’s nose, and the same exudation that first hangs in the air, upon the water, bubbles up from the water, clings to vegetation, or to earth, before it reaches the dog’s nose. It is obviously not a question of strength of scent, for a dog having missed a brace of close-crouched partridges will instantly find the spot they rose from after they have gone, proving that, often enough, the foot scent is very much the stronger.

The author has no opinion how it is that some dogs detect the difference between foot and body scent instantly, and others cannot do it. It cannot be that one is more the breath of the hunted animal than the other, because probably the otter evolves no scent except breath when under water, and his line is as huntable to the swimming pack as that of the land quarry to the running hounds. Possibly the actual heat of the volatile exudation may have something to say to the question. Whatever the difference consists of, it is only some dogs that instantly recognise it. These may or may not be animals able to detect a scent a long way off. No great wonder should be occasioned by the inability to be certain: how often do human beings recognise a picture, or a taste, without being able to give either a name?

No attempt will be made to prove what canine-detected scent is, except to this extent. It must be something that our own olfactory nerves work above, or below. Just as there are noises we cannot hear and colours we cannot see, so there are doubtless scents of great power that we nevertheless cannot detect even slightly. A dog will sometimes find and appear to locate correctly a partridge, or rather a pair of them, at 200 yards. We may take those birds in hand and put them to our noses, and even then we cannot detect the faintest scent of any kind. Scent is supposed to spread as the square of the distance, so that 600 feet squared would represent the difference in degree of the scent of the bird in hand and that of the bird 600 feet away. That is to say, one would be 360,000 times as strong as the other, and we cannot detect the strong, whereas the dog finds the weaker one. Surely this is enough to show that it is no question of degree at all, but of something else. Possibly the strong scent of deer and fox that we often do detect is misleading us into the belief that we can sometimes smell what hounds run by. On the other hand, the author has noticed that when he can smell a fox strongest hounds cannot smell him at all, and consequently there is more confirmation that what the canine race hunts by the human nose cannot always detect in any degree whatever.

It has often been affirmed that game birds lose their scent during incubation, and there is no doubt they lose a good deal of it. Hares and vixens heavy with young are said to have a similar protection from their enemies. But in all cases there is scent, only it is different, and not easily recognised by the dogs kept for hunting it. On the other hand, the nests that the pointer and setter cannot find, the terrier, with a worse nose, often does discover, much to the gamekeeper’s grief; and the foxes find great numbers of these nests also, and they do not do it by sight.

A study of the matter is greatly complicated by the fact that game birds give out no scent when crouching, fearful, under a falcon, and this hawk most certainly does not rely upon his nose to help him discover his prey. To understand why the power of retaining the scent should have been evolved, by the survival of the fittest, it is necessary to go back to the wilderness stage of our islands. Probably the first gamekeeper’s duties were performed by the slayers of wolves, at any rate in historic times, and we have no occasion to try and take a peep at the cave bear in his British den. The country was much more wooded than it is now, and it is clear that those falcons that only kill in the air would go hungry in woodlands had it not been for the earth-crawling vermin that flushed game for them.

The falconers are now proud of teaching a hawk to “wait on” in the air while a pointer is at work, but if falcons ever hunted in a brushwood country in a state of nature, that is exactly what they would have had to do for their friends the wolves, since they could not flush for themselves, and could not kill until a flush had occurred. It is consequently quite likely that waiting on is a latent instinct in the long-winged falcons, and equally, therefore, retaining the scent was a protection against beast and bird alike.

It is a confirmation of this theory, that the birds that in incubation secure safety by watchfulness, such as the lapwings, retain their scent neither in incubation nor at any other time, but exude it while they are hatching.

The Purchase of Pointers and Setters

Most people have to buy their dogs for the moors, or to hire them. During June and July large numbers are annually sent up to Aldridge’s, in St. Martin’s Lane. There are a very few general rules which may save a buyer from disappointment.

In nearly all cases the vendors offer to show dogs on game before the sales. It is obviously the best way to go, or send, and have them viewed upon game. The first question always to be asked about young dogs is whether they are gun-shy, and in a trial when no game is being shot it is wise to use the gun, but not fair to use it over much. A dog that has been used to having a shot or two fired over it during an hour’s breaking is not necessarily ready to undergo the bewildering experience of a dozen discharges in close proximity and in quick succession when no intention is obvious. Even on the moors, on the 12th of August, the use of the gun should be tempered with discretion, whether the puppies are inclined to be nervous or not. Besides, this is obvious wisdom from another point of view. Your puppy will do as much work as an equally well-made old dog if you “nurse” him; but if, on the contrary, you allow him to run himself out at the first start, he will soon do it, and will not “come” again that day.

Probably the best way is to make a rule, for the few early days, always to take every puppy up after the first find and killing of grouse. Allow him to point dead and make a fuss over the birds killed, but then have him led away 300 yards behind the firing line, where every shot heard will add to his anxiety to make more acquaintance with the gun, provided your dog-boy knows how not to be severe. In an hour, probably, the young dog will be made for life by this treatment; but, as one can never tell, it is safest to proceed thus for a few days, and meantime the puppy may have fresh short runs at intervals of an hour or two. This refers to highly broken puppies, and not to the wild, sport-spoiling sort. The former are never so good as when they have the keen edge on; the latter are never worse than with it on. Such dogs are too wild to be of use all the morning, and too tired all the afternoon, so that the points one has to make sure of in purchasing pointers and setters are—

Absence of gun-shyness.

Steady pointing.

Freedom from chase.

Dropping to wing, gun, and hand.

A fair amount of ability to go, with a prospect of staying when in working condition.

A good nose.

Answering to whistle.

With these qualities good sport will be assured, although the most particular will require in addition good backing. It is the quality most often absent in good puppies, and luckily can most easily be dispensed with. There are hundreds of shooters over dogs who never saw good backing, as most people are satisfied when the dog behind takes up an attitude of steadiness, and they do not ask unpleasant questions as to its nature. In practice a double point is often as good as a back, and it is not difficult to understand how some people may get to prefer that the dog behind is on the spot. For one thing, he is then safe from doing undetected damage, and is ready to assist in roding out close-lying birds as soon as his companion needs help.

Between this and the most striking field trial backing there is a happy middle course, which used to be considered the most perfect, and is so now, but it would be unfair to expect it when strange dogs meet each other at field trials. It consists in a perfect sympathy with the pointing dog, so that the animal which has not got the scent feels it through the “thought reading” of his companion. One cannot suppose there is conscious imitation of movement, yet so perfect has occasionally been the imitation of the movements of the advance dog by the one behind, that, step for step, stop for stop, crouch for crouch, and drop for drop, the one has copied the every action of the other, as if the pointing dog’s nervous system was affecting the muscles of both inch by inch. Not only has this been so, but the hesitation of a lifted fore leg has been reflected by the image behind. This kind of thing generally arises from two dogs being constantly used together, being particularly equal, and also being frequently tired in their work, so as to make it habitual for one to be glad when the other has found game. At field trials, if the competing dog is not sorry to see a competitor’s point, his master probably is (it may mean £100), and the feelings of the man are apt to be reflected in the dog.

By “nursing” a team of dogs in the way mentioned above, it is wonderful how few will keep a pair of guns going day after day. If dogs are run to a standstill one day, they will want a day’s rest the next, and the fewer dogs a shooter can get through the grouse season with, the better and more experienced each canine servant becomes. Consequently, economy and excellence go hand in hand.

The better to further both designs, the buyer should have some regard for make and shape, and a minor regard for size. The dog-show ideals will not assist much. The principal wants of a working dog, to enable him to go on long, and day after day, are good shoulders. The nearer the tops are together the better—indeed, in imitation of the shape of a good hunter’s withers (that is, narrowing as they approach the top of the back). Powerful muscles in the hind legs, especially in the second thighs, big hocks set low down and well bent stifle joints, but not necessarily well bent hock joints, are all essentials, but only in proportion to the weight to be moved. Big fore legs below the knee and loins the same width from end to end—that is, with no dip horizontally or vertically in the middle—is part of the formation essential to stamina. But, after all, the only point wanted is proportion. With true balance the lighter a dog weighs the better, and yet the bigger he is the better too. This is only saying that the lighter and stronger he is for his size the better.

If it is impossible to see dogs out before auction days arrive, the safest way is to pick out some owner who sells with a good description, and who is good for powder and shot in the event of a mistake being made. Then the buyer has what amounts to a guarantee, and one that has often been acted upon. But unless the purchase is of well seasoned dogs, that have been the chief helps to some well-known sportsmen, it is always safest to go exclusively for field trial blood.

The chances are that young dogs of this blood will be far better than their owners know, and will come on in a surprising manner after a little shooting over, whereas coarse-bred dogs, that have been shot over a season, will be going back, and in most cases will have probably learnt some bad habits.

Nobody can decide for another how many dogs will do. The men differ even more than the dogs. Alternate instead of consecutive days on the moors will mean half the dogs necessary for every day upon the “hull.” In the same way the number may be decreased again by half if the shooting does not start until noon, and a long hour is taken for lunch, and the shooter is back at the lodge by 6 p.m.

Other men will begin shooting at 9 a.m., and will stop work at 6.30 or 7 p.m., which more than doubles the hours. Then the dogs will differ. The average perhaps will not now do more than two hours’ fast work during the day. Nothing is much more distressing in sport than a tired man trusting to a weary dog. That kind of thing is not what one pays big grouse rents for, and nothing less than fast work is likely to satisfy in these days.

No shooter of economic mind in regard to canine assistance does well to permit couples to be used on shooting days. They take half a day’s work out of some dogs, and a good deal out of all. Pointers and setters ought to be taught to walk at heel without couples, and are all the better for being sent in a cart to the fixture. Every ounce of energy should be conserved, as with a Derby horse. If dogs are really broken, they cannot be too fresh. Sometimes they are more fond of galloping than finding game, and then the best thing to do is still to start them fresh, but to run them until they are tired. This soon makes them glad of an excuse to find game. On the other hand, some are too fond of pointing, and will follow up any faint scent, leaving ground and birds right and left behind them, because they are too lazy to quarter. They are not nice dogs, but they are best worked very fresh and only for short spurts.

The author has often been asked what is the best way to treat a dog that false points and draws right into the wind as if he had found game, when he only thinks he may have done so. Probably the best way is to walk past him with a good retriever at heel, one on which reliance can be placed to show whether there is game in front or not. This saves you from the necessity of recognising a false point, either by drawing on the dog or calling him off. In either case your notice would do harm, whereas if you take not the smallest notice of such points the dog will soon learn to rely upon himself, if he has any courage at all.

There is, of course, a great demand for field trial breakers. Good men of this sort always get good posts, but sportsmen who have keepers whom they would like to see better handlers of dogs of any kind, would generally gain their ends by sending their men first to look on at field trials, then buying some six-weeks-old puppies of a good sort, in order to let their breakers compete occasionally at these events. It teaches keepers to view dogs in quite a different way, and they cost no more to keep as highly broken than as slovenly unbroken animals.