246 TRAINING THE HUNTING DOG 



is done in actual service to the gun afield. Such ar- 

 guments are absurd. To hold a dog down to the re- 

 strictions imposed by actual work to the gun would 

 vitiate all competition. The purpose of the compe- 

 tition is to try out the dog's powers to the utmost 

 in the qualities that are essential in actual field work, 

 and in the approved manner of field work, free from 

 the obstructiveness of the shooter whose dominant 

 idea is the capture of the bird rather than the degree 

 of his dog's natural qualities. 



The capture of the bird, by the way, is a difficult 

 idea to remove from the average shooter's field trial 

 data. He cannot consider a race between two or 

 more dogs without making the dead bird a standard 

 of value. One season at field trials usually convinces 

 the as-in-actual-field-work oracle that he is quite 

 right, and the field trial world is quite wrong ; in the 

 second season he begins to learn something on the 

 one hand and unlearn something on the other ; and, 

 later on, if he has a reasonable degree of good sense, 

 he learns to know that he did not know it all. 



The term "natural qualities" is difficult to explain 

 to the advocate of pure field work which is done in 

 the interest of the gun, for the reason that it em- 



