154 The Dog Book 



of this force system and to read his book on the subject one would imagine 

 it was the taming of a wild animal that he was describing. Burgess was 

 admittedly a good dog man, but any person who advocated as he did the 

 breaking of a dog to the chain by putting a collar on him and for the first 

 time attaching the chain to some building and there leave the dog to fight 

 till exhausted, may be expected to force a dog to fight by his own cruelty 

 to the animal, and in retaliation. With Burgess brute force was more 

 potent than patience and resolution, and he had to fight dogs because he 

 forced them to fight him to begin with. 



The lesson of retrieving is the crucial test of control of the dog, and 

 for that reason we think it should be deferred till the last so as to have a 

 pupil which has gone through the whole discipline and learned the full lesson 

 of obedience step by step, and has found out that what he is told to do he 

 must perform, whether or no. We fully agree with Mr. Burgess that it is 

 frequently a hard lesson to teach, and further that each step must be taught 

 at one lesson, so as to leave victory with the master and not the dog. 



Lesson number one consists in making the dog take hold of some 

 object and retain it in his mouth, and the modus operandi is as follows: 

 Take the dog into a room having with you a roll of cloth or an old news- 

 paper rolled so as to be about an inch or more in thickness and six inches 

 long. Back the dog into a corner and make him sit up, while you seat 

 yourself facing him with knees apart so as to fence him in as much as pos- 

 sible. Take hold of the dog's upper jaw as you would to administer medi- 

 cine, that is, pressing the upper lips against the teeth, with the thumb and 

 fingers. Put the roll in front of his nose and give the order " Pick it up," 

 at the same time forcing him by pressure to open his jaws till the roll can 

 be inserted between the open jaws. Keep repeating the order till you get 

 the roll in place, and there must be no let up till you do so. For this reason 

 we deprecate the idea of starting in to make a fight and struggle all over 

 the room to accomplish the object of forcing submission. There was no 

 forcing a fight in the prior lessons of training, and why seek to bring one 

 about in this ? With the dog unable to back away from you, unable to get 

 past you on either side and having a firm hold on his muzzle, he can be held 

 in subjection without fighting him. One can be firm without resorting to 

 cruelty to the dog. 



The lesson must be continued until he opens his mouth for the insertion 

 of the roll, or at least makes pretense enough to be an acknowledgment that 



