RETRIEVERS AND THEIR BREAKING 181 



time they go out, although they have never been allowed to 

 chase, and in spite of the fact that in the spring no game 

 has ever been killed over them. Some retrievers have had 

 this love of hunting also ; but a great many, on the contrary, 

 seem to depend on the excitement they get for the will to hunt. 

 The latter are the most difficult to break, and the least valuable 

 when they are broken. 



The qualities that must be hereditary in retrievers are that 

 one just described soft mouth, and to some extent "nose." 

 The last-named is not as certainly hereditary as the others, 

 although it is quite as important. The author is not prepared 

 to maintain that an excitable retriever having these last- 

 mentioned qualities is always a bad one, or that excitement 

 cannot be used as a substitute for natural love of hunting in 

 the breaking of a retriever, but this process is intended to 

 restrain excitement, so that the simultaneous encouragement 

 of it makes the task a conflict of intention. 



It is said that the business of catching wounded game 

 makes a retriever more apt to run in than a pointer or setter, 

 but the author has had several good retrieving setters that did 

 not run in, so that the difference in breaking is much more 

 likely to arise from temperament than from duties. 



It is very easy to make retrievers steady to heel. For 

 this purpose some people keep cut-wing pheasants for them 

 to retrieve, and Belgian hare rabbits for them to look at. 

 The lessons are useful, but whether use does not breed con- 

 tempt is doubtful. The author would expect a dog trained 

 to retrieve tame pheasants to become careless, and one that 

 constantly saw Belgian hare rabbits to be well behaved until 

 temptation arose. Retrievers that have sense often get very 

 cunning : one the author had did not start to run in until he 

 was five years old, and then he did it deliberately, and not from 

 excitement. The proof was that he would not move unless 

 he saw a hare was hit, then he went instantly, and would take 

 his whipping as if, deserving it, he did not mind. 



What do dogs think of us when we restrain them from catch- 

 ing the very things we go out to catch ? More proof was forth- 



