Retrievers are now by far the most popular gun-dogs in this country, whereas in America they are considered useless, with the exception of a few that are kept exclusively for duck shooting, and which are called Chesapeake Bay dogs, and are a distinct breed from any we have in England. Ninety-nine-hundredths of the work of English retrievers is on land, and although a retriever can hardly be called perfect unless he will hunt in water, and get a winged duck if that be possible, yet it is absolutely impossible to have a dog that is perfect in everything (or so it appears), and therefore a shooter exercises a wise moderation in his demands when he insists on perfection in one department rather than moderation in all.

People purchase and use retrievers for either one or more of several reasons:—

1. Because they like a dog.

2. Because they like to collect more game than they shoot.

3. Because they do not like to leave wounded things to die in prolonged pain.

4. Because when they are out of the house they like to have something that they can order about.

5. Because the dead game that can be seen is easy for the dog to retrieve.

6. Because the wounded game that cannot be seen is difficult for men to pick up.

7. Because a handsome retriever gives a finish almost equal to neat spats to a shooter’s turn-out.

8. Because it is much easier to gain credit for sportsmanship at a dog show than in the field and covert.

9. Because there is a demand for stud services at remunerative fees.

In America they do not use retrievers, because they can make all their pointers and setters retrieve, and they must have some of the index dogs or they get no sport, so that they will not keep two dogs to do the work of one.

In England there are three sorts of retrievers, and crosses between each, besides Labradors and spaniels. These three are the flat-coated variety, the curly-coated sort, and the Norfolk retriever, with its open curl or wave of coat. The author believes that the curly-coated show dog is now useless, that the Norfolk dog has gone off in looks, and that the flat-coated retriever is open to regeneration when he is bred more wiry and less lumbering. Besides this, many of the breed are short of courage to face thorns, and slack to hunt also. Gamekeepers say that the highest trial of a retriever’s ability and pluck comes at the pick-up the day after a big shoot. Especially is this so on grouse moors, where no ground game or living creatures of any kind are to be found around the butts, and where probably not a gun is fired during the whole hunt for yesterday’s lost dead. The author has never seen this phase of retriever work; but he believes there are very few dogs that could not get enough of that kind of thing, and that the absence of sport and the search for cold meat might make the best dogs inclined to “look back” for orders. On the other hand, grouse collecting after a drive is just finished is the easiest of all the work the retriever is called upon to perform, for except where there are peat hags or open drains a grouse with a broken wing will not run very far. In one sense retriever work is more difficult than it used to be when game was walked up, for the necessity for remaining quite still until a drive is over, whether the game be grouse, partridges, or pheasants, often gives the wounded a twenty minutes’ start. Consequently, it is likely enough to get clean out of the range of a retriever by the time he is started. It is all very well to say that he should get upon the foot scent and stick to it; so he should, and probably would much oftener than he does, but for the fact that there is around the fall of the wounded in all directions the scent of other dead and wounded birds. What is often asked of a retriever, then, is to neglect the strongest and freshest scents and to try for the weakest and oldest. In order to get this work well done, a retriever should be willing to range wide, outside the radius of the dead birds, so as to find either the body scent of the crouching wounded bird or its foot scent after it had got clear of the floating scent of the many dead which fouls the ground long after the fowls have all been removed from it. But the misfortune is that a high ranging retriever is not always willing to hunt close for dead birds and those that have not moved far. However, this can be taught; whereas there are many fair retrievers for close hunting that could not be taught to hunt wide for a moving “runner,” for the reason that they have not the necessary pluck.

A great deal of difference of opinion exists as to whether a retriever should carry a high or a low head. But there is no doubt that a good dog must do both as occasion requires. Many times has the author seen a high-headed retriever find the fall of a wounded bird 60 yards away, go straight to the place, glue his nose to the line, and never look up until the bird fluttered up in his path. But even this low nose on the foot scent is not invariably desirable, and the same retriever that at one time worms out a line down wind will often run like a foxhound, head up and stern down, when the direction is up wind, or even side wind. The higher the dog carries his head the faster he will go, and consequently the sooner he will come up with his game, so that to insist on retrievers carrying a low nose, even in roding game, is to insist on mediocrity. Every retriever should put his nose down as soon as he has satisfied himself that he cannot do the work with a high head. Of course a retriever cannot find even a fresh-shot bird if a man is standing over it, and as the habit is for shooters and beaters to go and “help” look for lost game, it follows that retrievers learn to put their heads down, for they know that unless they ram their noses nearly into the feathers the scent cannot be detected under such humanising conditions of scent. It is a good plan to pick up by hand all the game that lies near and within sight of where the shooters stood before sending the dogs, and when the dead pick-up is collected, to send the game off down wind of the place to be hunted, so that the scent of it does not mix with the similar scent of some long-gone runner. Then if the ground to be hunted is up wind of where the dead birds were, everything will be in favour of a dog started from that spot; if, on the contrary, it is to leeward of the fall of a lot of game, it is well to go still farther down wind with the retriever, and start him 100 yards or more away from the tainted ground. Then, after trying around for a trace of foot scent, it is easy enough to work back if no indications are found. The object is to get the retriever as quickly as possible on the line of wounded game, without letting him lose time lifting dead ones or hunting for already “picked” birds.

In walking up game one of the most difficult things to learn is to take the far-off bird, and not the easy one, first. By taking the latter with first barrel the former often becomes impossible, and it is just the same with retrievers. If you send them off amongst dead game, they must be allowed to pick it up, although you can see it. A contrary practice is very useful sometimes, and it is easy to teach a retriever to neglect the dead for the wounded always; but this “higher education” is extremely awkward in thick cover, like long heather or turnips, where the quite dead birds are most often lost.

A case in point occurs. Mr. A. T. Williams’ Don of Gerwn won the retriever trials very comfortably in 1904, when the author was one of the three judges. There is no doubt that he is very smart on a running bird in covert, or out, and he knows it, and likes the game amazingly. But in 1905 he carried his preferences too far; for once, at least, and probably on several occasions, he found, and made no sign of it when sent for dead birds, but went on hunting for the runner that was not. He had been scolded off dead birds, and thus, on one occasion, he was seen by a spectator to turn over the dead wing of the only bird down and go on hunting, as if his master only wanted his services for the lively runner. As the judges did not see this performance, Don had the discredit of having his eye wiped on very easy birds twice. Probably if they had known all about it, there would have been no other course open to them; for, after all, the “higher education” must stop short at teaching the neglect of retrieving to the retriever.

It is a great but not uncommon mistake to confuse bustle and excitement with courage and love of hunting. No dog should have less excitement or more courage than the retriever. Excitement is so easily recognised that little need be said of it, except that it is probably a near relative of nerves, and a retriever should appear to have no nerves and no excitement. He should be able to stand still, to lie still, or to sit still, in the presence of any quantity of wounded or dead ground game or winged birds. The standing still is the most difficult of the three. At the same time, the more interest a retriever takes in all that is going on the better he is sure to be, provided he is not excitable. Probably no dog takes more interest than a pointer, standing like a statue and dropping as the game rises. He may be excited as he does this, but the majority are not, and a retriever should be no more so. The pointer watches the game go away, but as he does so he sinks to the earth, and the retriever may be just as interested without jumping about or jerking his head in all directions in turn. A good retriever appears to be thinking, and when a dog is noticed to take his gaze off the bird he has been watching at every new arrival, or new fall, of game, he usually has not much stability. He is sure to turn out flighty, and that is a very bad quality—the outcome of excitement. The determination to hunt can exist without any excitement, can grow on what it feeds on, and does not require the assistance of blood to increase it. This is a very important thing to know, because an old idea was that setters and pointers must be allowed to chase game to give them a love of hunting. Some of them may require it; others will increase their love of hunting every time they go out, although they have never been allowed to chase, and in spite of the fact that in the spring no game has ever been killed over them. Some retrievers have had this love of hunting also; but a great many, on the contrary, seem to depend on the excitement they get for the will to hunt. The latter are the most difficult to break, and the least valuable when they are broken.

The qualities that must be hereditary in retrievers are that one just described—soft mouth, and to some extent “nose.” The last-named is not as certainly hereditary as the others, although it is quite as important. The author is not prepared to maintain that an excitable retriever having these last-mentioned qualities is always a bad one, or that excitement cannot be used as a substitute for natural love of hunting in the breaking of a retriever, but this process is intended to restrain excitement, so that the simultaneous encouragement of it makes the task a conflict of intention.

It is said that the business of catching wounded game makes a retriever more apt to run in than a pointer or setter, but the author has had several good retrieving setters that did not run in, so that the difference in breaking is much more likely to arise from temperament than from duties.

It is very easy to make retrievers steady to heel. For this purpose some people keep cut-wing pheasants for them to retrieve, and Belgian hare rabbits for them to look at. The lessons are useful, but whether use does not breed contempt is doubtful. The author would expect a dog trained to retrieve tame pheasants to become careless, and one that constantly saw Belgian hare rabbits to be well behaved until temptation arose. Retrievers that have sense often get very cunning: one the author had did not start to run in until he was five years old, and then he did it deliberately, and not from excitement. The proof was that he would not move unless he saw a hare was hit, then he went instantly, and would take his whipping as if, deserving it, he did not mind.

What do dogs think of us when we restrain them from catching the very things we go out to catch? More proof was forthcoming that it was determination and not excitement that made this old dog run in. When a cord was put on him, he would not move under similar circumstances. He was eventually cured, but it was a tough job, and was not done by cord or whipcord.

Forty years ago the curly-coated dogs were the best workers, and one could make sure of getting good dogs regularly. For instance, about that time the author bought a brace of curly puppies from Mr. Gorse, of Radcliffe-on-Trent, then the most noted exhibitor of show dogs. Both took to work naturally and quickly, and could in their first season be trusted to get runners in turnip-fields of 100 acres each. Ten years later, the author bought one of the late Mr. Shirley’s flat-coated heavy sort, but, although no trouble to break, it was heavy in mind and body. Mr. Shirley entered the own brother of this dog at the field trials at Sleaford; there was no other competitor for the prize. Had there been another entry, it is impossible that Mr. Shirley could have won, for a more lumbering and clumsy performance was never seen, although the task set was only that of picking up a dead bird and not a runner. But Mr. Shirley improved the next generation considerably. He had a very handsome dog to which the author was anxious to raise some puppies. With this object in view, an exchange was made for a defeated bitch called Jenny, then belonging to Mr. Gorse, before mentioned. He took a second prize Birmingham winner of the author’s breeding in exchange. But Mr. Shirley objected to the breeding programme, so that another course had to be adopted, and Jenny raised some first-rate working dogs. Then she was disposed of by the author to the late Mr. Shirley, and by him bred to the dog which had been denied to her when the author’s property. Her name was changed from “Jenny” to “Wisdom,” and she became the founder of the Wiseacre family of show retrievers. She presented them with those long heads physically that some people declare are far from “long” figuratively. Wisdom, or Jenny, herself was certainly a fool, and the origin of her long and narrow refined head was probably what is known as a “sport,” for it was not to be seen on any other retriever of that time. However, she had a good nose and a tender mouth, and is important because probably all the show flat-coated dogs are descended from her.

All the public retriever trials in the field have not been failures like that at Sleaford, previously mentioned. But they have only become popular with show men quite recently. The latter have very wisely concluded that if they could not snuff out the trials that so frequently exhibited handsome dogs in a poor light, the next best thing to be done was to capture them. In order to do this, a very large number of entries have been made, and as the stake is necessarily limited (20 was the number), this had the effect of keeping out most outsiders.

Thus at the 1905 trial there were 39 nominations, only 20 of which were accepted, and these were made up of 15 flat-coated dogs, one Norfolk retriever, two Labrador retrievers, and two brown or liver-coloured dogs, one of which, at least, was not of the dog-show strain in most of his removes.

By this plan the show flat-coated breed has come to the extreme front for the first time in the history of the field trials. Probably it will be interesting briefly to enumerate the principal features of retriever trials. Nobody ought to be able to do it better than the author, for he is the only man who has seen them all. The first was a very modest effort attached to the 1870 autumn shooting trials of pointers and setters, held at Vaynol Park, which fine property the late Mr. Assheton-Smith had just before inherited. The following year, at the same trials, there were two stakes for these dogs. The author hunted a puppy which was quite good on wounded partridges, but the very worst possible retriever on a wounded hare. The first thing he was set to do was to get a wounded “squarnog,” as a hare is called in Welsh. Strange to say, on the fine rushy, damp fields of Vaynol, the expected wild-goose chase came off, and the useless hare retriever came back with the spoils of victory. A retriever, possibly belonging to Mr. Lloyd Price, was entered at the same time by the late Mr. Thomas Ellis of Bala, for the aged dog stake, and won very easily. The “Devil” had been obviously named for his looks. He was a curly sandy-brown, with whiskers like an otter hound. His victory reached the ears of the Welsh Church, and caused remonstrance against taking in vain names of potent powers. This had so much effect on the Welsh squire, that the following year he entered a son of the Devil and called it “Country Rector,” possibly thereby avoiding the danger he had been cautioned against. That year it was clear once more that the show beauties were out-classed, and probably that was the reason why, when the Vaynol ground was no longer available, no other trials except the Sleaford failures were instituted for thirty years, or until those of the Retriever Society, which are now held annually. These began about the opening of the new century, and appear likely to see it out. But the first meeting under it was a failure. The winning dog was either very old or very slow, and it was not until the following year that any smart work was seen. This was done by Mr. Abbott’s Rust, whose name explains her colour and appearance; but she did some brilliant work, especially when she was set to wipe the eye of one which appeared to have a good chance until she had failed at a running pheasant, one that gave Rust no trouble whatever ten minutes later, and with so much the worse chance. Rust on that occasion was the only dog present that either by pedigree or reversion went back to the old race of retrievers. This was reminiscent of the “Devil” triumph, and was far from encouraging to the beauty men. The following season Rust was again out, but far too fat and sleek to do herself justice, and she was beaten by the life of idleness she had been leading as a hearth-dog, and also by a very nice black bitch with some white upon it, belonging to the late Mr. Charles Eley, whose son, Mr. C. C. Eley, had taken second with a nice-looking black in Rust’s year. Three Messrs. Eley were in the field for honours in the following years, and by the assistance of Satanella, a bitch without known pedigree, and Sandiway Major (by Wimpole Peter) they headed the working division. Sandiway Major was a triumph for the show pedigree, as his sire was a Champion; but it was noticed that Major was a very distinct reversion to the old wavy-coated sort, for he was quite as much a curly as a flat coated-one. He had been purchased out of one of Mr. George Davies’ annual retriever sales at Aldridge’s, and his work was good although perhaps not brilliant. This was not all that the show men could desire, and the following year another sandy liver-coloured dog, named Mr. A. T. Williams’ Don o Gerwn, easily won first. This dog was a son of that Rust spoken of before, and his sire was a cream-coloured dog of Lord Tweedmouth’s strain—even more of a facer for the believers in exhibition dogs. But on this occasion another son of Wimpole Peter was third, and in 1905 turned the tables on Don of Gerwn. This was a handsome but somewhat slow dog belonging to Colonel Cotes of Pitchford. Don put himself out of court by not condescending to notice dead game, and hunting on the principle of “nothing but runners attended to.” The Pitchford dog is descended from a very old working strain, which first figured in public when one of them appeared in the pages of the Sporting Magazine about the year Queen Victoria came to the throne. But, as a son of Wimpole Peter won the stake, and three sons of Horton Rector were high up in it, the exhibition division has every right to be pleased with its first unalloyed triumph. Mr. Allan Shuter, as the owner of the living Rector, has even more reason to be pleased than Mr. Radcliffe Cooke, as sometime owner of the now dead Peter. But Mr. Shuter’s own entry was not at all what was wanted, for he was too big, too lumbering in body, and not particularly nimble in mind. Mr. Remnant has come near winning first on various occasions, and may be looked upon as a sportsman likely to improve the breed, by the neglect of beauty spots and selection for the fittest, as also very decidedly may be Mr. C. C. Eley, Major Eley his brother, and their cousin, Captain Eley, and Mr. G. R. Davies. Captain Harding, too, in Salop, has the right sort, and his Almington Merlin has had bad luck, or another Wimpole Peter would have come to the front.

That these retriever trials are doing good, in starting breeders who are trying to correct the working faults of the various breeds, is obvious, and with the public spirit exhibited by the late Mr. Assheton-Smith future sportsmen will assuredly associate the names of Mr. B. J. Warwick, Mr. C. C. Eley, and Mr. William Arkwright, not only as founders of the Retriever Society, but also as finders of the game on which the dogs have been tried.

Everybody who is acquainted with the average dogs seen at shooting parties, and has the advantage of ever having seen a really good one, will know how very necessary was some such move as these field trials. It often has been said that all the retrievers could do was to pick up game the men could see. It has become fashionable to demand a no-slip retriever—that is, one that will not run in to retrieve until ordered to do so. Perhaps it has been the readiness with which such dogs have sold that has caused breakers to prefer the slugs, as being the most easily controlled, and the least likely to be returned by purchasers as wild. Whatever has done it, the real game-loving instinct is much weakened since the time when a retriever was a working dog or nothing; but it appears to survive in a modified degree, which may assuredly be strengthened by selection.

It has been previously stated that the waiting until drives are over makes the retrievers work harder than of old, but this does not apply to the hardest of all work—that is, covert shooting; for this has been largely “driving” ever since retrievers were introduced, if it can be said that they ever were introduced. This point is rather doubtful, because the curly retriever is nothing more than an altered edition of the old English water-dog, which variety used to do wildfowler’s duty, with a white leg or two, a white chest and a short tail, which had probably been cut like those of other spaniels. The first retriever the author shot over was entirely of this description, stern and all, except that she was all black, or so nearly whole-coloured that no white upon her can be remembered. This was about 1860, and a son of this “missing link” was particularly smart, and had so good a mouth, that on one occasion, when he annexed a hen sitting on her nest, and carried her half a mile, she was returned to her treasures and sat upon them, none the worse for her involuntary excursion into the next parish. That calls to mind the frequently made statement that it is wrong to give dogs hard things to retrieve. The idea is that it teaches them to bite and to be hard-mouthed. That is an entire mistake, and this dog, like many another, was often made to retrieve stones, and to prove whether he bit them he was occasionally sent back for hen’s eggs, but never broke one.

It is said, too, that the old dogs were lumbering, and so no doubt the Newfoundland type of wavy-coated dogs were, but this hen-and-egg carrier, like his mother, was active enough. He was not steady to heel, but was as sharp as a lurcher, and in cover it was difficult in his presence to miss a rabbit. No wounded one would get to its hole, and a good many that were not wounded were nevertheless retrieved and duly credited to the shooter. Now it is considered a strain on the breaking and a temptation to the mouth of a retriever to trust him with ground game in his first season. Although this particular dog was never broken to stop at heel, such rules, if they existed then, were more honoured by the breach than the keeping, and the dogs were mostly as steady and as soft-mouthed as any now.

The author has used a retriever often with a team of wild spaniels, and constantly with setters and pointers, without any running in of broken dogs, except in the cases already mentioned, and these are the highest trials of the steadiness of retrievers. In hunting a brace of young setters there is obviously no time to argue with a retriever, not even with a shooting-boot, and the author has had no trouble, as a rule, to make his retrievers conspicuous only by their invisibility behind, until they were called upon for action.

One great dog man makes his retrievers “back” when his dogs point. But pointing and setting dogs take no notice, and do not break in, when they are in the habit of looking upon the retriever as a part of the gun. It may be, however, that when black pointers are used a backer might mistake a retriever for a drawing pointer, and be thus led into error; and if so, this is a serious objection to black and black-and-tan index dogs.

The worst cross the author ever made was with Zelstone. Although not a large dog, he was said to be a pure bred Newfoundland. He was a flat-coated retriever Champion, and may have been himself a good worker; but he ruined the working qualities of the descendants of Jenny above mentioned, and brought the author’s strain of them to an end. Consequently, it is suggested that the Newfoundland is the type to breed out of the flat coats.

Breaking the Retriever

It is said that the way to have a perfect dog is to let it live with you, but it seems to be an excellent way to teach the dog to obey only when he likes, for if his master insists on obedience other people who will take an interest in a nice dog, will pet, spoil, order, and coax by turns. The collie is put forward as the most wonderful exhibition of dog breaking, but the author has rarely seen a collie take the order to come to heel, or to go home, when a stranger approaches the shepherd’s house. The good sheep-dog has a duty to perform that he likes, and he does it well, but ask him to do anything besides, and he objects, and gets his way. The spaniel’s business is the most taxing of all, and requires the best breaking, except when the retriever is broken to do spaniel’s duty as well as his own, as he can. That is to say, he can find live rabbits in their seats and turn them out to the gun, and stand still as they go. This is far more of a tax on any dog than steadiness in pointing, when the breaker turns out the pointed game. The turning out often amounts to an attempt to catch a rabbit in its seat; and the instantaneous stop when the creature moves is, as nearly as may be, the exercise of the savage impulse with the civilised control in mid career.

Perfect hand breaking of the retriever includes fetching and finding inanimate objects, dropping to order, remaining down for any length of time, coming to order, hunting in any direction indicated by the breaker, not only to right and left as desired, but far or near as bidden. All these teachings will come naturally to a man fond of dogs, just as a nurse fond of children will make them do anything without any book of rules. Consequently, the only point necessary to insist upon is the utmost quickness of obedience in all things. This is got by surprise orders at moments and in situations when the dog cannot help but obey, and by an economy of orders, so that the pupil never gets tired. The quickness in returning with a retrieved object is usually learnt by means of the breaker starting to run away as soon as the object is lifted. By means of this trick, and never boring the pupil with too much work in his play-time, as going out with his breaker should be to him, any dog can be taught to return on the instant; and a good education in this point has much influence on a retriever’s softness of mouth. By this coaching he will be brought to do things instinctively, and when he comes to game he will then have no time to stop to select the best grasp, but he will come at full gallop, whatever his first hold of his game may be, and when this is the case he never will grow hard-mouthed. Consequently, your hand breaking goes half-way to make the mouth.

Entering on Game

It is said to be a good way to show a retriever heaps of game running about while he is at heel. No doubt this is true, but not before he has learnt to retrieve running game. To make a retriever steady before he wants to be wild is easy enough; but it is not teaching self-control, and is educating the dog to ignore game just as he should sheep. Consequently, it is best, as soon as the young dog is perfectly hand broken, at six or eight months old, to give him some line hunting after living game. This will increase his fondness of hunting, and give him an inclination to go for all the game he sees, so that he will gain self-control with every head of game he does not chase.

The author used to believe that a drag was good exercise in line hunting: it may serve to start a puppy, but he will hunt the man and not the dead game. There are objections to most methods of teaching rode hunting, but the author’s plan serves at least three useful purposes. First of all, and most important is the use of a bird that is not easily bitten or hurt, so that no damage is done to the dog’s mouth, or to the tame and wing-cut wild duck, for this is the bird used. The duck is taken away from its pond, and turned down in a meadow, when it will head towards its home, creeping as much out of sight as possible. In the grass it will prove very easy to rode up to, and that is wanted for a young dog. Later it can be made quite difficult enough over fallow, or anywhere, by giving lots of law. Then in a shallow pond the duck is an education to the water-dog. Almost every dog will take water provided he can touch bottom and there be a match for a duck, but many dogs object to swimming. Nevertheless, if there is only one small spot in the pond which the retriever cannot wade, the duck will find this out very quickly, and will, by degrees, tempt in the dog out of his depth. He will soon learn to dive after the duck, too, and in fact become a first-rate water-dog without having a shot fired over him.

The duck let off in a turnip-field will be a great lesson, for at first turnip leaves and the innumerable small birds and other creatures in turnips, especially rabbits and thrushes before the shooting season, bother a youngster even more than the absence of much scent of the game to be retrieved.

After this course the puppy will be quite ready to take the field, and will probably get the first running partridge or grouse he is sent after, and do it as quickly and well as an old dog.

The author never made his retrievers drop to shot, but no doubt it steadies the nervous and keeps down excitement to do it. If it is approved, the hand-breaking time is best for its teaching, and it should become habit, as if instinctive. Then, in the field, it can gradually be forgotten; but long after a dog ceases to drop to shot he will retain an impulse to do so, and as this will be an exactly contrary impulse to that of running in, it will save many a whipping. However, a dog is not broken if he is only safe when lying down; for it is really putting him out of temptation.