Part 21

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.

CAPT. H. HEYWOOD LONSDALE’S IGHTFIELD ROB ROY POINTING, AND BACKED BY PITCHFORD RANGER ]

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.