190 MODERN TRAINING. 



being absent, his judgment will be unbiased, and he then 

 can see how the puppy, in his inexperience and awkward 

 methods, was blameless. The flight of a bird consequent to 

 a flush was not the unpardonable offence and irritating dis- 

 appointment that it seemed when the gun was in hand. 

 When the amateur can take his gun afield, take an interest 

 in training and judge the merits of work as calmly and 

 without prejudice as when the gun is absent, he has then 

 attained a very correct frame of mind for conducting the 

 training properly; but ordinarily it requires a long time to 

 get the amateur past the stage where he feels a greater 

 desire to kill birds than to train dogs. 



Flushing is seldom a willful fault in a well-trained dog, 

 although it occasionally is so, yet punishment is inflicted 

 many times when the dog is wholly blameless. There are 

 many conditions under which the dog is almost certain to 

 flush. It is impossible for him to scent birds, with any 

 degree of certainty, down wind. If after a bevy, he may 

 cautiously road down wind, but unless he has rare judgment 

 and experience, he will flush. If he stops to a point under 

 such circumstances, he discriminates by the intensity of the 

 foot scent, but he seldom points under such circumstances 

 with certainty. An intelligent dog, if left to his own will, 

 generally takes a cast around and below them to get the 

 wind. Going across wind is practically as difficult for the 

 dog to perform in as going down wind, if the birds are 

 straight ahead of him. Any position which precludes the 

 possibility of the scent reaching the dog's nose is sufficient 

 to excuse him for any flushes. 



Every sportsman of experience has seen a retrieving 

 pointer or setter trot squarely over a dead bird, while search- 

 ing for it, wholly unconscious of its proximity; yet if within 

 fifteen or twenty yards of it down wind, the dog would scent 

 and go directly to it. Under these circumstances, the 



