Part 31 (1/2)

297. Scent differs of wounded and unwounded Birds.

298. Three dead Snipe lifted in succession; Setter that stood fresh Birds while carrying a dead one; Pointer that pointed Partridge while carrying a Hare; Retriever refusing to relinquish chase of wounded Hare.

299. Injudiciousness of _retrieving_ Setter pointing dead.

300. Argument against employing retrieving Setters holds against using regular Retrievers.

301. Regular Retrievers to beat; its advantages; one Dog does the duty of two.

302. Water Retrievers, or Water Spaniels, to retrieve crippled before picking up dead Wild Fowl; how taught.

303. None of these accomplishments so difficult to teach as a good range.

304. Might be taught by your Gamekeeper, but not to be expected of regular Breaker.

[Ill.u.s.tration: c.o.c.kERS.--BUTLER AND BRISK.]

DOG-BREAKING.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. QUALIFICATIONS, IN BREAKER--IN DOG.

1. Dog-breaking, so far from there being any mystery in it, is an art easily acquired when it is commenced and continued on rational principles.

2. I think you will be convinced of this if you will have the patience to follow me, whilst I endeavor to explain what, I am satisfied, is the most certain and rapid method of breaking in your dogs, whether you require great proficiency in them, or are contented with an inferior education. No quicker system has yet been devised, however humble the education may be.

The education in fact of the peasant, and that of the future double-first collegian, begin and proceed on the same principle. You know your own circ.u.mstances, and you must yourself determine what time you choose to devote to them; and, as a consequence, the degree of excellence to which you aspire. I can only a.s.sure you of my firm conviction, that no other means will enable you to gain your object so quickly, and I speak with a confidence derived from long experience in many parts of the world, on a subject that was, for several years, my great hobby.[2]

3. Every writer is presumed to take some interest in his reader; I therefore feel privileged to address you as a friend, and will commence my lecture by strongly recommending, that, if your occupations will allow it, you take earnestly and heartily to educating your dogs yourself. If you possess temper and some judgment, and will implicitly attend to my advice, I will go bail for your success, and, much as you may now love shooting, you will then like it infinitely more. Try the plan I recommend, and I will guarantee that the Pointer or Setter Pup which I will, for example sake, suppose to be now in your kennel, shall be a better dog by the end of next season--I mean a more killing dog--than probably any you ever yet shot over.

4. Possibly you will urge, that you are unable to spare the time which I consider necessary for giving him a high education--brief as that time is, compared with the many, many months wasted in the tedious methods usually employed--and that you must, perforce, content yourself with humbler qualifications. Be it so, I can only condole with you, for in your case this may be partly true; mind, I only say _partly_ true. But how a man of property, who keeps a regular gamekeeper, can be satisfied with the disorderly, disobedient troop to which he often shoots, I cannot understand. Where the gamekeeper is permitted to accompany his master in the field, and hunt the dogs himself, there can be no valid excuse for the deficiency in their education. The deficiency must arise either from the incapacity, or from the idleness of the keeper.

5. Unlike most other arts, dog-breaking does not require much experience; but such a knowledge of dogs, as will enable you to discriminate between their different tempers and dispositions, I had almost said characters--and they vary greatly--is very advantageous. Some require constant encouragement; some you must never beat; whilst, to gain the required ascendancy over others, the whip must be occasionally employed.

Nor is it necessary that the instructor should be a very good shot; which probably is a more fortunate circ.u.mstance for me than for you. It should even be received as a principle that birds ought to be now and then missed to young dogs, lest some day, if your nerves happen to be out of order, or a c.o.c.kney companion be harmlessly blazing away, your dog take it into his head and heels to run home in disgust, as I have seen a b.i.t.c.h, called Countess, do more than once, in Haddingtons.h.i.+re.

6. The chief requisites in a breaker are:--Firstly, command of temper, that he may never be betrayed into giving one unnecessary blow, for with dogs, as with horses, no work is so well done as that which is done cheerfully; secondly, consistency, that in the exhilaration of his spirits, or in his eagerness to secure a bird, he may not permit a fault to pa.s.s unreproved, I do not say _unpunished_, which at a less exciting moment he would have noticed--and that, on the other hand, he may not correct a dog the more harshly because the shot has been missed, or the game lost; and lastly, the exercise of a little reflection, to enable him to judge what meaning an unreasonable animal is likely to attach to every word and sign, nay to every look.

7. With the coa.r.s.est tackle, and worst flies, trout can be taken in unflogged waters, while it requires much science, and the finest gut, to kill persecuted fish. It is the same in shooting. With almost any sporting-dog game can be killed early in the season, when the birds lie like stones, and the dog can get within a few yards of them; but you will require one highly broken to obtain many shots when they are wild. Then any incautious approach of the dog, or any noise, would flush the game, and your own experience will tell you that nothing so soon puts birds on the run, and makes them so ready to take flight, as the sound of the human voice, especially now-a-days, when farmers generally prefer the scythe to the sickle, and clean husbandry, large fields, and trim narrow hedges--affording no shelter from wet--have forced the partridge--a _short-winged_[3] bird--unwillingly to seek protection, when arrived at maturity, in ready flight rather than in concealment. Even the report of a gun does not so much alarm them as the command, ”Toho,” or ”Down charge,”

usually too, as if to make matters worse, hallooed to the extent of the breaker's lungs. There are anglers who recommend silence as conducive to success, and there are no experienced sportsmen who do not acknowledge its great value in shooting. Rate or beat a dog at one end of a field, and the birds at the other will lift their heads, become uneasy, and be ready to take wing the moment you get near them. ”Penn,” in his clever maxims on Angling and Chess, observes to this effect, ”if you wish to see the fish, do not let him see you;” and with respect to shooting, we may as truly say, ”if you wish birds to hear your gun, do not let them hear your voice.” Even a loud whistle disturbs them. Mr. O----t of C----e says a gamekeeper's motto ought to be,--”No whistling--no whipping--no noise, when master goes out for sport.”

8. These observations lead unavoidably to the inference, that no dog can be considered perfectly broken, that does not make his point when first he feels a.s.sured of the presence of game, and remain stationary _where he makes it_, until urged on by you to draw nearer--that does not, as a matter of course, lie down without any word of command the moment you have fired, and afterwards perseveringly seek for the dead bird in the direction you may point out--and all this without your once having occasion to speak, more than to say in a low voice, ”Find,” when he gets near the dead bird, as will be hereafter explained. Moreover, it must be obvious that he risks leaving game behind him if he does not hunt every part of a field, and, on the other hand, that he wastes your time and his strength, if he travels twice over the same ground, nay, over any ground which his powers of scent have already reached. Of course I am now speaking of a dog hunted without a companion to share his labors.

9. You may say, ”How is all this, which sounds so well in theory, to be obtained in practice without great severity?” Believe me, with severity it never can be attained. If flogging would make a dog perfect, few would be found unbroken in England or Scotland, and scarcely one in Ireland.

10. Astley's method was to give each horse his preparatory lessons alone, and when there was no noise or anything to divert his attention from his instructor. If the horse was interrupted during the lesson, or his attention in any way withdrawn, he was dismissed for that day. When perfect in certain lessons by himself, he was a.s.sociated with other horses whose education was further advanced. And it was the practice of that great master to reward his horses with slices of carrot or apple when they performed well.