XX INTRODUCTORY. 



range at high speed. Although they are a very uncertain 

 test of a dog's real merit, trials are not without educational 

 benefits to sportsmen. However, from a training point of 

 view, the obedience of field trial dogs is not the standard of 

 a thorough education; nor is the training of such dogs a 

 standard of the real abilities of the trainers. 



This treatise is after the modern professional system of 

 training. It combines the excellences of both the suasive 

 and force systems of education, and contains an exhaustive 

 description of the uses and abuses of the spike collar. The 

 author, by way of showing his qualifications for preparing 

 this work, would say that he was a professional trainer, field 

 trial handler and reporter for a number of years, and several 

 times acted in the capacity of judge. Taken thus in the 

 aggregate, his experience and consequent opportunities to 

 acquire knowledge from personal observation and practice 

 have been second to none. Although written from a profes- 

 sional standpoint, therefore from what is considered the 

 highest refinement of the art, it is intended for the use of the 

 amateur trainer and sportsmen in general. While the prin- 

 ciples are frequently repeated in their many different rela- 

 tions, it is none too clear for the use of the amateur; and 

 even with the most elaborate explanation, he will find com- 

 plications that will tax his judgment to overcome suc- 

 cessfully. 



Many of the principles and positions herein treated are 

 more or less opposed to the recognized authorities of a 

 decade ago, but the reader should bear in mind that field 

 sports and their accessories have far outgrown the scope of 

 the old authorities. Their beliefs and experiences are not 

 our beliefs and experiences. Authorities, one after another, 

 have to retire as the march of improvement leaves them in 

 the rear, the perpetual struggle for supremacy making no 

 exceptions. 



