10 Modern Breaking 



ego is large — very large and extremely sensi- 

 tive — and to tell a man he has not sense enough 

 to break a dog after he has been told how 

 would seriously offend him. But it is neverthe- 

 less true that a man who has done little break- 

 ing does not know how to do it, even if he has 

 all the rules by heart. The difficulty is he does 

 not understand himself as he thinks he does. 

 He will do things he may have determined not 

 to do, and he will omit to do things he 

 had determined upon doing. Then he will 

 do things in a different manner from what he 

 should do them. Again, there are nerves and 

 notions in a man's make-up that never find 

 expression until he tries his hand at breaking a 

 high-strung setter or pointer. In short, the man 

 who starts out to break a setter or pointer with 

 the idea that he knows himself will be fooled, 

 and the dog, if not entirely spoiled, will fall 

 short of that degree of excellence he might 

 have reached in the hands of a man who had 

 taken the precaution to understand himself be- 

 fore he began the task of educating his dog. 



The amateur who becomes reasonably expert 

 in breaking his own dog has accomplished more 

 than the saving of the one hundred dollars he 

 would have paid a trainer. He will have suc- 

 ceeded In educating himself as well as his dog, 

 so that he knows himself better than he did 

 before and will have secured a control over his 



