BREAKING AND HANDLING. 233 



CHAPTER XVII. 



BRACE WORK. 



Brace work, in the formal manner in which it is practiced 

 in England, finds no favor with American sportsmen. 



It is an utter impossibility to make good braces out of all 

 dogs, be they ever so good individually. Necessarily a dog 

 cannot show all his traits when working singly, therefore his 

 capabilities for brace work can be determined only by act- 

 ual trial. To be desirable, the dogs of a brace must be as 

 nearly equal in speed as it is possible to have them, it be- 

 ing evident that an irregularity in this respect, or in ranging, 

 will detract from their value, since one dog will be doing all 

 the work. They should be nearly equal in style if one is 

 stylish and the other slouchy in his ways, the contrast is dis- 

 pleasing. A matter of prime importance is that they should 

 work independently. As mentioned in Ranging, one dog 

 should be strong in qualities in which the other is weak. It 

 is a very rare occurrence to find, even among the best per- 

 formers, dogs which are good in all kinds of work good 

 rangers, retrievers, good performers on bevies or single birds, 

 having good judgment, speed, range, intelligence, endur- 

 ance and honesty. Of course it is desirable to have both 

 clogs as near perfect as possible. An inferior training may 

 not be specially detrimental when a dog is worked singly, 

 but for brace work the training must be thorough. 



Each dog should be trained to turn to a different note of 

 the same whistle, so that turning both will be avoided when 



