RETRIEVERS AND THEIR BREAKING 177 



9. Because there is a demand for stud services at remunera- 

 tive fees. 



In America they do not use retrievers, because they can 

 make all their pointers and setters retrieve, and they must 

 have some of the index dogs or they get no sport, so that they 

 will not keep two dogs to do the work of one. 



In England there are three sorts of retrievers, and crosses 

 between each, besides Labradors and spaniels. These three are 

 the flat-coated variety, the curly-coated sort, and the Norfolk 

 retriever, with its open curl or wave of coat. The author 

 believes that the curly-coated show dog is now useless, that the 

 Norfolk dog has gone off in looks, and that the flat-coated 

 retriever is open to regeneration when he is bred more wiry and 

 less lumbering. Besides this, many of the breed are short of 

 courage to face thorns, and slack to hunt also. Gamekeepers 

 say that the highest trial of a retriever's ability and pluck comes 

 at the pick-up the day after a big shoot. Especially is this so 

 on grouse moors, where no ground game or living creatures of 

 any kind are to be found around the butts, and where probably 

 not a gun is fired during the whole hunt for yesterday's lost 

 dead. The author has never seen this phase of retriever work ; 

 but he believes there are very few dogs that could not get 

 enough of that kind of thing, and that the absence of sport 

 and the search for cold meat might make the best dogs inclined 

 to " look back " for orders. On the other hand, grouse 

 collecting after a drive is just finished is the easiest of all the 

 work the retriever is called upon to perform, for except where 

 there are peat hags or open drains a grouse with a broken wing 

 will not run very far. In one sense retriever work is more 

 difficult than it used to be when game was walked up, for the 

 necessity for remaining quite still until a drive is over, whether 

 the game be grouse, partridges, or pheasants, often gives the 

 wounded a twenty minutes' start. Consequently, it is likely 

 enough to get clean out of the range of a retriever by the time 

 he is started. It is all very well to say that he should get upon 

 the foot scent and st '~k to it ; so he should, and probably would 

 12 



