112 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



walking into the wind, the puppy is not unlikely to turn down 

 wind at one end or the other of his cast. That is a bad fault 

 in itself, and bespeaks flighty disposition, and a bad nose besides. 

 There is always scent of kinds, we may suppose, up wind of the 

 puppy, which ought to turn his investigating nose into the 

 wind instead of the other way, as so often happens. The 

 breaker may be troubled to correct this habit, but, as it is 

 partly owing to the dog's love of his breaker that he forgets the 

 game and turns back, it can be cured by making the puppy 

 more fond of rinding game, and by tiring him, until he has to 

 think of the nearest way. But as for other reasons tiring a 

 puppy in the breaking season is bad, when no game is being 

 shot, the trouble can be overcome by the breaker walking near 

 the hedge on the side of the field the pupil turns the wrong 

 way, and then, by the teacher making haste as the puppy 

 approaches that side, he will be automatically turned the right 

 way. Strangely, most puppies turn wrong at one end and not 

 at the other. If they turn wrong at both ends, they are probably 

 hopeless fools that are not worth breaking. 



A want of good "backing" may be very common from 

 many different causes. It generally comes from an absence 

 of interest in the point of another dog, and consequently is 

 more noticed in spring breaking than in autumn shooting. 

 If dogs are left to themselves in autumn, they will nearly always 

 back, or run in and take another's point. The latter is 

 objectionable, and may cause flushing by either dog, or by 

 both. But it shows interest in the point, and that is what the 

 breaker has to work upon. In the spring breaking not 

 infrequently a puppy will go half a mile round in order to avoid 

 being obliged to see and back a point. That is because 

 nothing of excitement ever comes of a back before the shooting 

 season, and in order to make a perfect backer of a dog of this 

 character (one that is obviously plucky and no fool) he must 

 have his interest created in the other's point. This is very 

 easy to accomplish. One of the chief causes of bad backing 

 is, naturally, false pointing. Like the man who is always 

 crying "Wolf!" the imaginative dog is not believed by his 



