CHAPTER XIX 



The Retriever 



HERE seems very little prospect of the English retriever 

 gaining a foothold in this country, though in Great Britain 

 and Ireland he is made of great use, as setters and pointers 

 are preferred not to touch dead game. It is one of the 

 many little peculiarities of the shooting men across the 

 Atlantic to hold that while it does not in the least matter in the case of a 

 spaniel, it is a drawback to setters or pointers to retrieve the game killed 

 over them. Here we do not find it so, and no shooting dog is considered 

 thoroughly broken until he is a perfect retriever. To avoid calling upon 

 the setter or pointer to retrieve, the Englishman takes another dog afield 

 with him, whose duty it is to retrieve the dead and wounded game. At 

 the present time the usefulness of the retriever is made still more apparent 

 owing to the change in the style of shooting by walking up the game, the 

 battue, and driving to the guns. In such cases the retriever is a necessity, 

 and as it is likely to be a long time before any appreciable amount of Amer- 

 ican shooting will be done on those plans, the day of the retriever is yet 

 in the dim future with us. On the Rutherford estate at Allamuchy, N. J., 

 at Fisher's Island, at the late Mr. Moen's and Mr. Bayard Thayer's pre- 

 serves in Massachusetts, where English pheasants are reared for battue 

 shooting, a few retrievers are kept, and we occasionally see one or two 

 at the New York Dog Show. These are mainly of the smooth variety, 

 but from time to time a rough or curly coated specimen has been shown. 



The case is very different in England, where retrievers are frequently 

 one of the best-represented breeds at the various dog shows and much 

 attention is paid to their improvement. The breed is supposed to have 

 its origin mainly in what has been for many years called the Labrador or 

 lesser Newfoundland, a dog that could not have originated in Labrador, 

 but undoubtedly owed its origin to animals brought as ship's dogs by 

 vessels from Europe. When we first became acquainted with the retriever 

 he was much more wavy in coat than the modern specimens, the change 



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