io6 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



Now, in the truly bred pointer or setter you may start by 

 repressing, go on by directing, and end by many " dressings," 

 but you cannot weaken the hunting instinct, however you try 

 to do it. In the former sort you have to wind up the clock 

 and put the hands right at every turn, in the latter you have to 

 put the regulator right once and the works will do the rest. 

 It is impossible to endow with instinct at all, and especially is 

 it impossible when excitement has taken the place of the 

 hunting habit. You have only the excitement on which to 

 work to re-create a love of hunting, at the same time that you 

 have to repress excitement in the interests of breaking. 



It is not very wonderful that show-bred dogs cannot win 

 field trials. To ask a breaker to educate them is a little 

 worse than to turn Irish salmon into the Thames and expect 

 them to come back there. When the last Thames salmon was 

 killed the last instinct to return to the Thames vanished from 

 Salmo salar. You can no more get it back than you can make 

 a field trial dog out of a show-bred one, or bring the dead 

 instinct to life. 



Having got the right blood in the form of a puppy of ten 

 or twelve months old, and one that has learnt no bad manners 

 at walk or in some bad breaker's hands, there is a straight road 

 to success, but one that is not always taken. The first thing to 

 teach a puppy is to understand all you say to it. Until this 

 has been accomplished, the loudest shouts of " Down charge," 

 " Drop," or any other order, are in danger of being mistaken for 

 just the opposite to what is intended. Most of the clever 

 breakers at field trials have unique signals, invented by 

 themselves, and practised by nobody else. It is a good way 

 there, and in shooting, because your dog is not then confused 

 by orders given by other people. One man drops his dog by 

 bringing his stick to the ground, and signals it forward by 

 holding up his hand. The general practice is just the reverse. 

 It does not matter what signals or words of command are 

 used if they always mean the same for the dog. 



The more often orders are given, and obedience to them is 

 enforced, the more instinctive becomes the dog's habit of 



