Choosing a Shooting Dog 173 



some of those which are the most fussy and 

 anxious in the kennel are quitters and dullards 

 in the field. 



Jealousy is a bothersome fault. If, however, 

 a handler once with a check-cord gets a dog in 

 the habit of stopping at command, the annoyance 

 disappears. 



Defects which the bench-show experts dwell 

 upon frequently need not trouble the amateur 

 sportsman unless he intends to exhibit. Bench- 

 show men ask for narrow shoulders in shooting 

 dogs and greyhounds. It is reasonable to sup- 

 pose that they are right, and yet almost every 

 first-class shooting dog has round and muscular 

 shoulders. This is not to be confused with heavy 

 and cumbersome shoulders, which are always to 

 be condemned. Even in greyhounds the rather 

 thick shoulder is the rule among first-class dogs 

 as far as I have been able to observe them. A 

 dog which Mr. Watson picked, not only as the 

 best greyhound, but as the best dog, in the some- 

 what celebrated exhibition at St. Louis, in 1897, 

 was Magician, a son of Miller's Rab. Mr. Wat- 

 son specially admired the dog's narrow shoulders 

 and straight front. Yet Magician was never a 

 very fast dog, was a very poor killer, and won his 

 coursing honors almost purely on his staying 

 powers. This latter attribute he did not get from 

 his shoulders, because he had not at any time 



