DOGS FOR THE GUN. 167 



Other obvious defects, such as not quartering the ground, 

 hunting down wind, not obeying the call or signal, the veriest 

 novice in field-sports will immediately detect. It is not, how- 

 ever, with faults so apparent that dogs for sale are generally 

 to be charged. They are, for the most part, drubbed into 

 such show subjection, that the tyro fancies them perfect, and 

 only finds out their bad breeding and nose after a week's 

 shooting. 1 To assist the judgment of the uninitiated, I have 

 given accurate likenesses of the two best pointers I ever had. 

 I know some faults might be found in them, but they have 

 all the main requisites. 



If your dogs are well bred, the great secret of making them 

 first-rate on the moor is, never to pass over a fault, never to 

 chastise with great severity nor in a passion, and to kill 

 plenty of game over them. There are two faults, however, 

 to which dogs, otherwise valuable, are sometimes addicted 

 these give the sportsman great annoyance, but may often 

 be more easily corrected than he is aware. One is the in- 

 veterate habit, contracted through bad breaking, of running 

 in when the bird drops. This trick is acquired from the 

 breaker's carelessness in not always making the dog fall down 

 when birds rise a rule which should never be neglected, on 

 any pretence. The steadiness of a dog, whether old or young, 

 depends entirely upon its "being rigidly observed. After the 

 fault of running in is once learned, the quickest remedy is 

 the trash-cord and spiked collar; but many gentlemen buy 

 dogs before shooting over them, and commence their day's 

 sport without these appendages. They are thus obliged either 

 to couple up the dog, or run the risk of having any birds that 

 remain after the pack has risen, driven up, and those that 



1 Dogs of this kind remind me of an anecdote I remember to have heard from 

 a brother sportsman, but for the truth of which I cannot vouch. Walking out 

 with a highly -broke pointer, he suddenly missed him, when he presently espied 

 him soberly and submissively following the heels of an old guinea-fowl, whose 

 reiterated cry of " Come back ! Come back ! " he had thought it his duty to 

 obev ! ! 



