BREAKING AND HANDLING. 57 



down to the level of the commonplace, his writings taking 

 rank with a multitude of spiritless, careless, insipid produc- 

 tions that might have passable merit if the authors had terms 

 which would express their ideas. 



The terms used to denote the education, and branches of 

 education, to which the dog is subjected in preparing him 

 for field work, and the details of field work, are also scanty 

 and inexpressive. Even the terms Training and Breaking, 

 used to denote the general education of the dog in respect 

 to field work, have not the fixedness of meaning which they 

 should have. Either term, if restricted to its common 

 meaning, does not express the matter fully; and when used 

 technically, there is no precise accuracy. While both are 

 used as being synonymous by some experts in respect to the 

 general education of the dog, by others they are used to 

 designate different systems of training. 



These terms, training and breaking, have different shades 

 of meaning when applied to special branches of training; 

 for instance, it may be said that a dog is trained to quarter 

 his ground, or to range, and that he is broken from chasing, 

 biting birds, etc., thus requiring both terms to express the 

 several parts of education. However, these loose terms are 

 much better than the multitude of acts which have no name, 

 or which have an imperfect designation. In case a dog 

 false points to such an extent that the hunter feels no cer- 

 tainty of birds being to his points, there is an unusual pro- 

 fusion of terms, for the act is called a false point when no 

 birds are found, and the dog which habitually false points 

 is called a false pointer. If two dogs back each other, the 

 technical term is they '.'back each other." Here is a crude 

 name for the act, but there is no technical term whatever to 

 distinguish the dog which habitually causes the act; for it is 

 commonly caused by a dog which will back while his com- 

 panion is roading or puzzling over scent. Many common 



