Il6 MODERN TRAINING. 



forward in an attitude of caution (or any other signal the 

 trainer chooses) being the signal to stand still; a wave of 

 the same hand is an order to Go on. When the dog is 

 perfectly taught, he, in conjunction with performing the act, 

 can be moved forward five or six inches at a time and 

 stopped instantly by signals, every movement being deli- 

 cately responsive and sympathetic to the slightest signal of 

 the hand. It is very pretty as a trick. When steady to 

 orders in the house, it is then necessary to finish the Toho in 

 the field without any reference to direct hunting; after this 

 it is necessary to give him more lessons when working on 

 birds. No matter how steady he may be to the order when 

 no birds are present, he generally pays no attention to it 

 when on game, unless he is of a very honest, submissive 

 disposition, and such dog does not require it. Several 

 weeks must be devoted to teaching it perfectly, and this 

 labor greatly exceeds the labor necessary to steady the dog 

 in a proper manner. If the trainer should persist in training 

 obedience to it to the exclusion of the real purposes of a 

 dog in field work, he will have to so completely subjugate 

 him that he has no self-reliance, but simply and slavishly 

 looks to his handler for instructions at every turn, the worst 

 possible stage of over-training. 



The author, in his early attempts at training, diligently 

 taught the Toho, because it was after the methods pre- 

 scribed by recognized, authorities on training. The insuffi- 

 ciency of it in the field in contrast to the charming powers 

 ascribed to it by the authors was difficult to reconcile; 

 however, it was assumed that more experience would bring 

 a better understanding of it. The writer was a long while 

 in unlearning this, with a mass of other like rubbish which 

 was learned with much trouble and practiced faithfully. It 

 is simply a method which found favor when methods were 

 crude and the dog's nature misunderstood; and the method 



