198 MODERN TRAINING. 



A dog must have a fair degree of speed which he can 

 maintain at a uniform gait for a reasonable length of time, 

 if he has any pretensions to ranging. The slow dog is 

 only fit for woodcock shooting, or quail shooting in cover. 

 The fast dog is the king of the field. He can be trained 

 to work in an open country, ranging wide and fast, or he 

 can be trained to work at a slow gait in cover or small fields. 

 A dog having great powers of speed and endurance, when 

 trained to go at half or quarter speed in a cover country, is 

 unquestionably working with greater ease than a slow dog 

 which is running nearly at the top of his speed; yet neither 

 the fast nor the slow workers are necessarily good per- 

 formers merely because they are fast or slow. If a dog has 

 a good nose, he can perform going at a high speed quite as 

 well as at slow speed. Some fast dogs learn to adapt them- 

 selves, with wonderful readiness, to different ground and 

 different species of game; for instance, a dog maybe a wide 

 and fast ranger on quails, yet on woodcock he may entirely 

 change his methods to harmonize with the changed require- 

 ments and surroundings. But whether fast or slow, no dog 

 can perform well if his nose is functionally poor. 



All amateurs are inclined to work their dogs too slow. 

 When left to his own volition, the dog soon becomes a fast 

 and accurate worker, as may be observed when dogs are 

 feral. The abilities of the dog in respect to fast work are 

 well exemplified in the performance of foxhounds in the 

 chase. The hound soon learns to adjust his speed to his 

 powers of scent. 



As to what constitutes the proper scope of ranging, much 

 depends on the character of the ground, and the habits of 

 the birds. In the prairies of the Northwest, West and 

 Southwest, when hunting for chickens, a dog is not ranging 

 too far so long as he can be seen well, provided that he is 

 working to the gun. Half a mile on each side of the wagon 



