624 Some American Sporting Dogs. 



the inauguration of bench-shows, breeding in this country, as a rule, 

 was conducted in a most careless and slipshod manner, yet I believe 

 we had strains of dogs, as well as individuals, which, even allowing 

 each the benefit of its own ground and training, were fully equal, 

 certainly as field performers, to any across the water. That we 



GORDON SETTER " LOU.'' 



would have continued to possess them I very much doubt. Careless 

 breeding, with no regard to the selection of the fittest, and no atten- 

 tion to pedigrees, combined with the fact that there are ten men to- 

 day who shoot over dogs to where there was one twenty- five years 

 ago, would soon have worn out the stock, had it not been renewed 

 and regenerated with imported blood. There is no comparison be- 

 tween the amount of work demanded of our dogs and that required 

 in England. Here, the average sportsman owns but one dog, and 

 that one is expected to work from morning until night, day in and 

 day out ; while across the water no one thinks of going to the moors 

 without at least half a dozen dogs, which are worked alternately in 

 braces, Nor are their dogs taught or allowed to retrieve. A curly- 

 coated retriever follows at the keeper's heels and brings in the dead, 

 — British sportsmen having a theory that fetching dead birds injures 

 the dog's scenting powers. The crossing of these "blue bloods" 

 with the best of our natives is the true theory of breeding by which 

 we will perpetuate the best qualities of both. Unfortunately, how- 

 ever, if a dog comes with a long pedigree from a widely advertised 

 English kennel he is bred too indiscriminately without regard to his 



