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CHAPTER III. 



How to Breed Exhibition Specimens. 



The unexpressed desire of every fancier's heart on 

 observing the winning career of a great champion, whom, 

 rightly or wrongly, he instinctively chooses as his 

 ideal, is to own or breed such a one. For the same 

 reason that the philosopher cynically said, that fleas 

 were necessary to the dog to help him to forget that he 

 was a dog, so are hobbies and pastimes given to us that 

 we should not dwell too much oil matters that are un- 

 balancing to the mind. 



It is, of course, quite an elementary matter for a rich 

 man, by the simple process of cheque signing, to become 

 possessed of a champion dog of the day; or it sometimes 

 happens that the comparative neophyte breeds one by a 

 fluke. The flukes in breeding live stock have been a 

 fascinating wonder to the scientist for ages. Breeders of 

 to-day are lucky in their generation. They have a bed- 

 rock of ascertained facts to work upon which was 

 necessarily denied to the pioneers. Type, that bugbear of 

 all breeds, at any rate in Airedales, is now fixed definitely, 

 so that the theory path, beset as it was with almost in- 

 surmountable obstacles, which was the common lot of 

 the breeders of ten years ago, is now fairly smooth, and 

 the patient striver after perfection, if his enthusiasm 

 will only hold out, will find himself in the promised land 

 where champions and typical specimens are as thick as 

 leaves at the fall in Vallambrosa. 



There are simple rules in every game or hobby by 

 which alone it is possible to secure the best results. The 

 first rule should be to avoid, as you would the pestilence, 

 the advertising windbag, who generally buys to sell, and 



