258 MODERN TRAINING. 



for sharp practice is wholly imaginary. Do not assume for 

 a moment that all field trial handlers cannot handle and 

 train a dog well. It would be an anomaly if many who 

 make training and handling a profession did not know how 

 to manage a dog skillfully. Do not enter the competition 

 with some vague idea that the dog will be pulled through 

 by your superior skill. Trust more to ample experience and 

 good training and conditioning than to any element of pos- 

 sible handling superiority. Do not make the mistake, at a 

 trial, that, because the handlers and judges may appear to be 

 unobservant or apathetic, they do not know what is pass- 

 ing. It is better to attend two or three trials before coming 

 to a positive conclusion that the handlers do not know what 

 they are doing, that the dogs are inferior, a'nd that the 

 judges are incompetent. After about the third or fourth 

 trial, the novice will detect a multitude of things which he 

 did not know at his first experience. To a spectator, it looks 

 very easy and simple to handle a dog in a trial; it is so if 

 the dog is a good one and properly trained, if not, it is ex- 

 tremely difficult; but the amateur, by an experience therein, 

 will learn many things that he could not as a spectator. 



There is an error to which many mature and sensible men 

 are prone, namely, they, or their friends, have a dog at home 

 which can surpass anything they ever saw at a field trial. 

 They would be astonished to find how many errors could be 

 found in their dog's work if an expert were to keep a tally 

 on them disinterestedly. In field shooting, few sportsmen 

 consider a flush a demerit if it leads to a successful shot. 

 Such errors, while not injurious to the bag in private shoot- 

 ing, would seriously injure a dog's score in public competi- 

 tion. The inexperienced spectator always has in mind the 

 dog's work as he has seen it in its best phases several days 

 in succession; if run on strange grounds for an hour, about 

 the average length of a heat, he might make a poor show- 



