ModernBrealfing 63 



The breaker must bear this in mind. He must 

 not expect more from a yearHng dog than from 

 a four-year-old child. 



The fact is, and the breaker should give this 

 great weight, if the matter be intelligently con- 

 sidered, a man of sound judgment must con- 

 clude that a yearling dog is a pretty soft crea- 

 ture in the matter of brains. He may be a 

 bundle of nerves and he may have a lot of pro- 

 nounced instincts, but all this is not intelligence 

 nor the abiding place of judgment or much 

 knowledge. Too much stress cannot be put 

 upon this consideration of the young dog's 

 mental capacity, for an overestimate of this 

 quality is the primary cause of the ruination 

 of many a young dog of good natural quality. 

 If the breaker will take this at its true value 

 it will put him in the way of educating him- 

 self as to his own conduct toward the dog. 

 This done, he can decide to view with calmness 

 those aggravating things his dog may do. He 

 can know the importance of holding his own 

 temper and persevering with his dog in spite 

 of the dog's apparent disposition to refuse to 

 do things he should do. The breaker, when he 

 learns that he, instead of the dog, is at fault, 

 will learn to vary his methods and lead the dog 

 into the way of doing things. That is what 

 constitutes a larger part of the genius of dog 



