ii4 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



When you are quite sure your dog will not join in the chase, 

 you will make as much fuss about catching the bird as possible. 

 You will not let the puppy see what you do when you return 

 the bird to the bag, and you will not let the young dog go down 

 wind of the spot on which the partridge has been fluttering. A 

 clever dog will detect what has happened if you do either, and 

 will take no interest afterwards if it should be necessary to 

 repeat the lesson. After this, go straight home with the dogs 

 in couples, and next day have out for the young one a better 

 companion, that will not false point. It is twenty to one that 

 the first point made in the sight of the youngster will be 

 backed with all the vivacity of a point. In this way you will 

 discover that one good lesson, properly given with no mistake in 

 it, will do more than a year's drudgery in stopping, scolding, and 

 whipping, when the pupil ought to back. 



There are many pointers and setters that will back naturally, 

 but this trait almost implies that they have not as much capacity 

 for finding game as the neighbours that they back up in their 

 points. Indeed, the better the dog is naturally, the greater is 

 the difficulty in persuading him to a spirit of diffidence. 

 For these very good animals the plan has been found the most 

 useful by the author, and a triumph of breaking is to make a 

 perfect backer of a dog so good that he rarely sees a point, 

 because he finds nine-tenths of the game himself. In order to 

 do it, there is a necessity for reducing his own estimation of 

 himself, and luckily this can be done in the manner related 

 without in the smallest degree reducing the finding powers and 

 ranging energy of the most superior dogs. 



THE USES OF FIELD TRIALS FOR POINTERS AND SETTERS 



Once in a decade it is possible to see at a field trial a bit of 

 work so good that it is safe to say the doer of it will win the 

 stake it is safe, although when the opinion is formed the rest 

 of the entries have not been seen at work. It would not be safe 

 to say so when acting as judge, or to act upon any such notion. 

 But the writer has ventured the opinion on several occasions 



