288 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER 



you want to shoot is not conducive to sport with the 

 gun ; though I have heard people (who never tried it 

 probably) talk in an airy fashion of the delights of 

 shooting over pointers or setters broken by them- 

 selves. 



If you work your dogs yourself they will occupy 

 nearly all your attention, and you cannot possibly 

 shoot properly at the same time. 



Dogs will only work kindly for the man who feeds, 

 trains, and exercises them ; and if a shooter likes to 

 take over the duties of his keeper and do this, his 

 dogs will work for him ; but he cannot act the part 

 of dog breaker and shoot with success also. If a 

 shooter fancies the training of a dog, he may break 

 in a retriever and make his education perfect ; and 

 there is no excuse for anything but a perfect retriever 

 on a grouse moor, the part he plays on it being such 

 a very easy one to learn. 



Many a grouse moor has obtained a bad reputa- 

 tion and not been done justice to, simply because its 

 tenant has at the last moment before travelling north- 

 wards collected his team of pointers or setters from 

 dealers and through advertisements in sporting papers, 

 all said to be well trained and steady dogs, but when 

 put to proof half of them practically useless. The 

 end of this is, that from the constant shouting, 

 and scolding, and whistling, and whipping, and the 

 attempts at making wild dogs into steady ones in a 

 few days, the grouse become so harassed by being run 



