Part 30

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.

THE HON. A. HOLLAND HIBBERT’S KENNEL OF LABRADOR RETRIEVERS, 1901 ]

THE LABRADOR RETRIEVER

Recently there has been a great revival in numbers of the close and thick coated, featherless dogs called Labrador retrievers. Their ancestors, or some of them, were, as the name implies, originally imported from Labrador. They were not Newfoundlands when first brought over any more than they are now. But it is rather difficult to say which sportsmen had one sort and which the other when both first began to be used for sporting purposes, or to be crossed with setters and water spaniels, to make the ancestors of our present races of retrievers. The Labrador, as we know him now, probably had no setter or spaniel for ancestor, and there is every reason to believe that the Lord Malmesbury of the Diary, and later the Duke of Buccleuch and Sir R. Graham’s family, maintained the breed in its original form. But probably in-breeding told the usual story: a cross had to be resorted to, because the dogs were getting soft, and one cross was introduced at Netherby, and of all strains to select for a cross one would think that chosen the worst. It was a keeper’s night-dog that was chosen.

It has been said that Mr. Shirley’s original strain and also Zelstone of Mr. Farquharson’s strain were descended from Labradors. This is probably not quite correct. Their coats did not indicate this blood, but that of the Newfoundland.

The latter’s was always a long, loose, wavy coat with more or less tendency to feather; the Labrador had no more feather than a pointer, but a thick close coat with little or no wave. There is no doubt the purest blood has come from the Duke of Buccleuch’s kennel of late years, but the author would not like to affirm that crossings between that and the Netherby kennel did not introduce the night-dog cross into the whole of the race. The short round heads and wide jaw-bones in these dogs seem to bear physical witness to ancestry competent to take care of itself. This statement of a fact is not intended to carry a slur with it, for it may be said that the big shooter and enthusiastic dog man who found out these particulars, and gave me the modern history of the breed, has himself used the Labrador recently as a revival to his flat-coated strain of retrievers.

Judged from the point of view of an admirer of a good flat-coated retriever, the present race of Labrador dogs appear common. But it would be altogether wrong to say definitely that they are so. Make and shape is very much a question of fashion and taste, and when a certain section of the population can admire the bulldog it is not within the province of anybody to lay down the law as to what is canine beauty. At any rate, they have one great point seldom observed in the flat-coated dogs. Their loins are usually strong enough to enable them to be active. A dog with a loin too small for his weight may be fast, but he never can be active, and as one might expect from this formation the Labradors are remarkably quick in their movements.

Mr. Holland Hibbert has a big kennel of these dogs, and has exhibited their work at the retriever trials two seasons. His Munden Single was given first beauty prize at the 1905 trials, and was placed for looks over the heads of some very good specimens of the flat-coated sort. Still, it is not supposed that breeders of the flat-coated sort are likely to try to breed their dogs to the model then set up; and the author has always regretted the giving of beauty prizes at field trials. We go to these meetings to learn from Nature what form she chooses shall embrace and contain her best internal handiwork. Having found that out with much expenditure of time and trouble, we must needs read Nature a lecture before we separate, and instruct her what form she ought to have chosen for her best. We do not hold a mirror, but a model, up to Nature, and seem surprised she does not adopt the work of our creations as her best. This is surely all wrong, for it was obviously the selection of the best workers for hundreds of generations that evolved the forms that we call setters, pointers, and spaniels, and made them different from any other dogs, but did not make them like show dogs of the present time. If the latter had been the most fit form for the work to be done, it would assuredly have been evolved by the selection of the best workers.

THE HON. A. HOLLAND HIBBERT’S LABRADOR MUNDEN SINGLE ]

THE HON. A. HOLLAND HIBBERT’S MUNDEN SOVEREIGN ]

COL. C. J. COTES AND PITCHFORD MARSHAL, WITH HIS BREAKER HARRY DOWNES ]

THE HON. A. HOLLAND HIBBERT AND MUNDEN SINGLE ]

On these grounds, it seems to be unwise to place on a pedestal for imitation and admiration the Labrador that was beaten.

If Darwinism has a spark of truth in it, selection of the fittest for the acts of life has evolved every form in the world except just the trivialities, the abnormalities, and distortions that man has bred as a fancy, not to improve, but only to alter. Fancy poultry has been one of the chief fields for fancy operations in breeding, but, amongst all the new forms and characters produced, there is only one that would survive a state of nature for a couple of generations. That one is the old English game fowl, which was evolved, not by fancy selection, but by fighting—that is, by the most severe and discriminating form of selection and survival of the fittest.

Just in the same way will the forms of gun-dogs take care of themselves, provided selection of the fittest for work is severe enough. The pointer and setter trials have neglected stamina. If they had not done so, our working setters would have had backs like iron bars, as theirs have in America, where stamina has been the first consideration at field trials.

When Mr. Holland Hibbert ran Munden Single, the Labrador, in the 1904 retriever trials, there is not much doubt she would have been high up in the prize list had it not been that the last runner she got was brought back dead. It was a wing-tipped cock pheasant that Single roded out and then chased. But the cock could almost beat the dog by the help of its wings, and no doubt the Labrador was pretty much blown when she got hold. Then she had to cross a brook to get back, and it is likely enough that a stumble, or perhaps jumping against the bank, led to the pinching of the bird. However, excuses are not admitted in public competitions, and indeed none was made. In 1905, Single appeared to be quite tender in the mouth, and although she is admirably broken, and has no excitement or nervousness, but lots of love of the game, she was not as fortunate in her opportunities as had been the case the year before, and got no prize for work although she has lots of merit. Another Labrador at this meeting got a certificate of merit, so that, as only three entries have been made all told at retriever trials, the breed has taken a much better position with spectators than is indicated by its want of success in gaining stake money.

The private character of the breed for work is very good indeed, although some of them are reported to turn out rather hard in the mouth. But then the same thing can be said for every breed of retrievers. The author remembers Labrador retrievers forty years ago. The pair he first knew were kept as pets by a rural parson who did not shoot. It was commonly reported that either of these dogs would dive to the bottom of a well and fetch up a fourpenny-piece; but this was hearsay evidence, and was never seen by the present witness. However, these dogs had just the coat of the present Labradors, and distinctly not that of the Newfoundland. The only dog of the sort that the author ever had was death on cats, but this accomplishment did not make him hard-mouthed with game, as it probably would nine retrievers out of ten.

SPANIELS

The chief of the spaniels are the setters, but as they no longer claim connection at one end of the group, and as the King Charles and Blenheim spaniels are no longer granted the status of gun-dogs at the other extremity of it, the number of breeds is limited in fact, but unduly enlarged by Stud Book classification.

The only sporting breeds in reality, although there are more nominally, are the Irish water spaniel, used as a retriever, the English water spaniel, or half-breds of that almost extinct race, of which the curly retriever is a survival, but with a cross; the clumber, the English springer, the Welsh springer, and the cocker. Field and Sussex spaniels seem to have gone off in work, although they are said to have come on in appearance. There was an outcry that the show field spaniels were bred out of true proportion, and there were reports of the same dogs being observed in two different parishes at the same time. The drain-pipe order of body is not quite as exaggerated as it was before the reformation that occurred about 1898, but the black field spaniels and the Sussex dogs of the shows even now tend to a Dachshund formation. Still, the former are as handsome as dogs can be, and are in every sense spaniels to look at, although mostly too long and heavy for work, and suggesting hound cross by the high angle at which they carry their sterns. The truest bred spaniels when at work carry the stern at an angle of about 45 degrees with the earth, pointing downwards, and not much higher in kennel; but the majority of show spaniels carry the stern above the level of the back, and consequently suggest hound blood. Besides this fault, they have others from the shooter’s point of view. Their ears are too long, and they could not work in the feather they constantly carry. It is strange that the form of these spaniels should have been so grotesquely altered by selection for exhibition, and yet the old formations of clumbers, springers, and cockers have remained very much what they always have been. This is the more surprising, having regard to the fact that Sussex, black field, and cocker spaniels are now much of the same blood. The real cockers, which were at one time called King Charles spaniels, have become lap-dogs, and the smaller specimens of the other races have taken their places. And yet some cockers are distinctly the right shape and not too long, whereas the other exhibition races, named above as too long, are less workmen than the cockers although so much bigger.