272 TRAINING OF NER VO US DOGS 



being fed in their own kennel, but never in a strange 

 kennel, to slap two pieces of board together when 

 they are feeding. It should be done gently at first, 

 and louder and more frequently by degrees. This is a 

 well-known cure for nervous dogs, and I know of none 

 better. When in the company of the other dogs in 

 their own kennel they are less apt to be nervous than 

 when alone or in a strange place, and they can soon 

 be made accustomed to every sound which it is 

 necessary to train them to, and which they are likely 

 to hear when out on the hills, etc. 



I have often known cases where dogs have been 

 utterly ruined, when naturally at all nervous, by the 

 gun being fired too close to them, and it is indiscretion 

 which none but a young and inexperienced sportsman 

 would be guilty of I always made it a rule never to use 

 nervous dogs when shooting with strangers for this 

 reason ; and I can only remember one instance of a do^^ 

 of my own being spoiled in this manner, and I myself 

 was the transgressor, though it was the most curious 

 piece of bad luck. I had shot at a grouse, the dog, 

 when I last saw him, being staunch on his point in a 

 hollow in the corrie ; but in order to get better to him 

 I had to move round a hillock before I regained sight 

 of him. The dog was a young one, and when he saw 

 me going away from the point to get round him, he 

 must, I fancy, have moved quietly to meet me, for in 

 going round the back of the hillock I kicked up a 

 single old cock, which had run from the covey, and fired 

 at it, as I supposed, well over the hillock, although he 

 was fiying towards the corrie in which the birds were 

 well down. Just as I fired, to my horror, the dog 

 appeared on the top of the hillock, when all the time I 



