lyo The Sporting Dog 



have, however, no reason to suppose that Cincin- 

 natus was not a good bird dog. Certainly Mr. 

 Dager used him for regular shooting, as he would 

 scarcely have done if the dog had been a de- 

 ceiver. A daughter of Cincinnatus, which I 

 owned, was in her first year a most annoying 

 victim of this fault. In her second year I took 

 her on a shooting trip to the Ozarks. It hap- 

 pened that the place I visited was almost entirely 

 bare of game, owing to a severe winter the pre- 

 vious year. Not being able to find game, the 

 bitch took to false pointing. I think it safe to 

 say that at times she pointed a hundred times in 

 a space of two or three acres where there was no 

 sign of birds. She had been worked but little 

 for some time, and a lack of practice and her 

 anxiety to find something were the causes of the 

 trouble. Later, when she was put in regular 

 training, she became as positive and clean-cut in 

 her bird work as a man could wish. For several 

 seasons she was the shooting dog of Mr. Weems 

 of Quincy, Illinois. He is a practical sportsman 

 " with no foolishness about him," and he regarded 

 her as an exceptionally efficient dog. Field trial 

 dogs often show this fault, from the fact that very 

 few birds are killed over them, and they become 

 a little puzzled as to what it is all about. This 

 was the case of Seven-up, a fast and stylish field 

 trial dog in his Derby year and several times a 



