Part 36 (1/2)

137. I need hardly warn you to be careful not to interrupt him whenever he appears to be winding birds. However good his nose may be by nature, it will not gain experience and discrimination unless you give him a certain time to determine for himself whether he has really touched upon a faint scent of birds, and whether they are in his front or rear, or gone away altogether. Like every other faculty, his sense of smell will improve the more it is exercised. But on the other hand, as I observed before, do not let him continue puzzling with his nose close to the ground,--urge him on,--make him increase his pace,--force him to search elsewhere, and he will gradually elevate his head, and, catching the scent of other particles, will follow up these with a nose borne aloft, unless he is a brute not worth a twentieth part of the pains which you think of bestowing upon him; for,

138. Besides the greatly decreased chance of finding them, birds that to a certainty would become uneasy, and make off if pursued by a dog tracking them, will often lie well to one who finds them by the wind. They are then not aware that they are discovered, and the dog, from the information his nose gives him, can approach them either boldly or with great wariness, according as he perceives them to be more or less shy.

139. If, being unable to catch the dog's eye, you are forced to use the whistle frequently, and he continues inattentive to it, notwithstanding his previous tuition, stand still--make him lie down--by the word ”drop,”

if he will not obey your raised left arm--go up to him--take hold of his collar, and rate him, saying, ”Bad, bad,” cracking your whip over him--let the whip be one that will crack loudly, not for present purposes, but that, when occasion requires, he may hear it at a distance--and whistling softly. This will show him--should you beat him, you would confuse his ideas--that he is chidden for not paying attention to the whistle. Indeed, whenever you have occasion to scold or punish him, make it a constant rule, while you rate him, to repeat many times the word of command, or the signal which he has neglected to obey. There is no other way by which you will make him understand you _quickly_. You must expect that your young dog will for some time make sad mistakes in his range;--but be not discouraged. Doubtless there is no one thing,--I was going to say, that there are no dozen things,--in the whole art of dog-breaking, which are so difficult to attain, or which exact so much labor, as a high, well-confirmed, systematic range. Nature will not a.s.sist you--you must do it all yourself; but in recompense there is nothing so advantageous when it is at length acquired. It will abundantly repay months of persevering exertion. It const.i.tutes the grand criterion of true excellence. Its attainment makes a dog of inferior nose and action far superior to one of much greater natural qualifications, who may be tomfooling about, galloping backwards and forwards, sometimes over identically the same ground, quite uselessly exerting his travelling powers; now and then, indeed, arrested by the suspicion of a haunt, which he is not experienced enough, or sufficiently taught, to turn to good account,--and occasionally brought to a stiff point on birds accidentally found right under his nose.

It is undeniable, _coeteris paribus_, that the dog who hunts his ground most according to rule must in the end find most game.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] In ordinary seasons immediately after St. Valentine's Day--before the birds have made their nests. The first of September is the commencement of partridge shooting in England, as the 26th of Oct. and the 1st of Nov. are generally in America for quail.

All the breaking for partridge in this work, is applicable and must be referred to quail in America. Grouse shooting on the moors in England is applicable to our prairie shooting, and pheasant shooting to our ruffed grouse shooting, when that may be had. The reader must, therefore, transfer the months and seasons accordingly.--H.W.H.

[22] ”Leeward”--a nautical phrase--here meaning the side towards which the wind blows _from_ the field. If you entered elsewhere, the dog while ranging would be tempted, from the natural bearing of his nose towards the wind, to come back upon you, making his first turn inwards instead of outwards.

[23] But, independently of these obvious reasons, scent is affected by causes into the nature of which none of us can penetrate. There is a contrariety in it that ever has puzzled, and apparently ever will puzzle, the most observant sportsman--whether a lover of the chase or gun,--and therefore, in ignorance of the doubtless immutable, though to us inexplicable, laws by which it is regulated, we are contented to call it ”capricious.” Immediately before heavy rain there frequently is none. It is undeniable that moisture will at one time destroy it--at another time bring it. That on certain days--in slight frost, for instance,--setters will recognise it better than pointers, and, on the other hand, that the nose of the latter will prove far superior after a long continuance of dry weather, and this even when the setter has been furnished with abundance of water--which circ.u.mstance pleads in favor of hunting pointers and setters together. The argument against it, is the usual inequality of their pace, and, to the eye of some sportsmen, the want of harmony in their appearance. Should not this uncertainty respecting the recognition of scent teach us not to continue hunting a good dog who is frequently making mistakes, but rather to keep him at ”heel” for an hour or two? He will consider it a kind of punishment, and be doubly careful when next enlarged. Moreover, he may be slightly feverish from overwork, or he may have come in contact with some impurity,--in either of which cases his nose would be temporarily out of order.

CHAPTER VII.

FIRST LESSON IN AUTUMN CONTINUED. CAUTION.

140. If it is your fixed determination to confirm your dog in the truly-killing range described in last Chapter, do not a.s.sociate him for months in the field with another dog, however highly broken. It would be far better to devote but two hours per diem to your pupil exclusively, than to hunt him the whole day with a companion.

141. Many breakers do exactly the reverse of this. They take out an old steady ranger, with the intention that he shall lead the young dog, and that the latter, from imitation and habit, shall learn how to quarter his ground. But what he gains by imitation will so little improve his intellects, that, when thrown upon his own resources, he will prove a miserable finder. On a hot, dry day he will not be able to make out a feather, nor on any day to ”foot” a delicate scent. I grant that the plan expedites matters, and attains the end which _most_ professional trainers seek; but it will not give a dog self confidence and independence, it will not impart to him an inquiring nose, and make him rely on its sensitiveness to discover game, rather than to his quickness of eye to detect when his friend touches upon a haunt; nor will it instruct him to look from time to time towards the gun for directions. It may teach him a range, but not to hunt where he is ordered; nor will it habituate him to vary the breadth of the parallels on which he works, according as his master may judge it to be a good or bad scenting day.

142. To establish the rare, n.o.ble beat I am recommending,--one not hereafter to be deranged by the temptation, of a furrow in turnips or potatoes,--you must have the philosophy not to hunt your dog in them until he is accustomed in his range to be guided entirely by the wind and your signals, and is in no way influenced by the nature of the ground. Even then it would be better not to beat narrow strips across which it would be impossible for him to make his regular casts. Avoid, too, for some time, if you can, all small fields--which will only contract his range,--and all fields with trenches or furrows, for he will but too naturally follow them instead of paying attention to his true beat. Have you never, in low lands, seen a young dog running down a potato or turnip trench, out of which his master, after much labor, had no sooner extracted him than he dropped into the adjacent one? It is the absence of artificial tracks which makes the range of nearly all dogs _well_ broken on the moors, so much truer than that of dogs hunted on cultivated lands.

143. Moreover, in turnips, potatoes, clover, and the like thick shelter, birds will generally permit a dog to approach so closely, that if he is much accustomed to hunt such places, he will be sure to acquire the evil habit of pressing too near his game when finding on the stubbles--instead of being startled as it were into an instantaneous stop the moment he first winds game,--and thus raise many a bird out of gun-shot that a cautious dog--one who slackens his pace the instant he judges that he is beating a likely spot--would not have alarmed.

144. ”A _cautious_ dog!” Can there well be a more flattering epithet?[24]

Such a dog can hardly travel too fast[25] in a tolerably open country, where there is not a superabundance of game, _if_ he really hunt with an inquiring nose;--but to his master what an all-important ”if” is this! It marks the difference between the sagacious, wary, patient, yet diligent animal, whose every sense and every faculty is absorbed in his endeavor to make out birds, not for himself but the gun, and the wild harum-scarum who blunders up three-fourths of the birds he finds. No! not _finds_, but frightens,--for he is not aware of their presence until they are on the wing, and seldom points unless he gets some heedless bird right under his nose, when an ignoramus, in admiration of the beauty of the dog's sudden att.i.tude, will often forget the mischief which he has done.

145. Though you cannot improve a dog's nose, you can do what is nearly tantamount to it--you can increase his caution. By watching for the slightest token of his feathering, and then calling out ”Toho,” or making the signal, you will gradually teach him to look out for the faintest indication of a scent, and _point the instant he winds it_, instead of heedlessly hunting on until he meets a more exciting effluvia. See 174 to 176, and 228.

146. If from a want of animation in his manner you are not able to judge of the moment when he first winds game, and you thus are not able to call out ”Toho” until he gets close to birds, quietly pull him back from his point ”dead to leeward” for some paces, and there make him resume his point. Perseverance in this plan will ultimately effect your wishes, unless his nose is radically wrong. A dog's pointing too near his game more frequently arises from want of caution--in other words, from want of good instruction--than from a defective nose.

147. Slow dogs readily acquire this caution; but fast dogs cannot be taught it without great labor. You have to show them the necessity of diminis.h.i.+ng their pace, that their noses may have fair play. If you have such a pupil to instruct, when you get near birds you have marked down, signal to him to come to ”heel” _Whisper_ to him ”Care,” and let him see by your light, slow tread, your anxiety not to alarm the birds. If he has never shown any symptoms of blinking, you may, a few times, thus spring the birds yourself while you keep him close to you. On the next occasion of marking down birds, or coming to a very likely spot, bring him into ”heel,” and after an impressive injunction to take ”care,” give him two or three very limited casts to the right or left, and let _him_ find the birds while you instruct him as described in 228. As there will be no fear of such a dog making false points, take him often to the fields where he has most frequently met birds. The expectation of again coming on them, and the recollection of the lectures he there received, will be likely to make him cautious on entering it. I remember a particular spot in a certain field that early in the season constantly held birds. A young dog I then possessed never approached it afterwards without drawing upon it most carefully, though he had not found there for months. At first I had some difficulty in preventing the ”draw” from becoming a ”point.”

148. I have elsewhere observed that fast dogs, which give most trouble in breaking, usually turn out best: now if you think for a moment you will see the reason plainly. A young dog does not ultimately become first-rate because he is wild and headstrong, and regardless of orders, but because his speed and disobedience arise from his great energies,--from his fondness for the sport, from his longing to inhale the exhilarating scent and pursue the flying game. It is the possession of these qualities that makes him, in his anxious state of excitement, blind to your signals and deaf to your calls. These obviously are qualities that, _under good management_,[26] lead to great excellence and superiority,--that make one dog do the work of two. But they are not qualities sought for by an idle or incompetent breaker.

149. These valuable qualities in the fast dog, must, however, be accompanied with a searching nose. It is not enough that a dog be always apparently hunting, that is to say, always on the gallop--his nose should always be hunting. When this is the case, and you may be pretty certain it is if, as he crosses the breeze, his nose has intuitively a bearing to windward, you need not fear that he will travel too fast, or not repay you ultimately for the great extra trouble caused by his high spirits and ardor for the sport.

150. You have been recommended invariably to enter every field by the leeward side. This you can generally accomplish with ease, if you commence your day's beat to leeward. Should circ.u.mstances oblige you to enter a field on the windward side, make it a rule, as long as your dog continues a youngster, to call him to ”heel,” and walk down the field with him until you get to the opposite side--the leeward--then hunt him regularly up to windward.

151. I have read wondrous accounts of dogs, who, without giving themselves the trouble of quartering their ground, would walk straight up to the birds if there were any in the field. It has never been my luck, I do not say to have possessed such marvellous animals, but even to have been favored with a sight of them. I therefore am inclined to think, let your means be what they may, that you would find it better not to advertise for creatures undoubtedly most rare, but to act upon the common belief that, as the scent of birds, more or less, impregnates the air, no dog, let his nose be ever so fine, can, except accidentally, wind game unless he seeks for the taint in the air--and that the dog who regularly crosses the wind must have a better chance of finding it than he who only works up wind--and that down wind he can have little other chance than by ”roading.”