CHAPTER XIX 
Tue RETRIEVER 
=W|HIERE seems very little prospect of the English retriever 
i] gaining a foothold in this country, though in Great Britain 
and Ireland he is made of great use, as setters and pointers 
are preferred not to touch dead game. It is one of the 
many little peculiarities of the shooting men across the 
Atlantic to hold that while it does not in the least matter in the case of a 
_ spaniel, it is a drawback to setters or pointers to retrieve the game killed 
over them. Here we do not find it so, and no shooting dog is considered 
thoroughly broken until he is a perfect retriever. To avoid calling upon 
the setter or pointer to retrieve, the Englishman takes another dog afield 
with him, whose duty it is to retrieve the dead. and wounded game. At 
the present time the usefulness of the retriever is made still more apparent 
owing to the change in the style of shooting by walking up the game, the 
battue, and driving to the guns. In such cases the retriever is a necessity, 
and as it is likely to be a long time before any appreciable amount of Amer- 
ican shooting will be done on those plans, the day of the retriever is yet 
in the dim future with us. On the Rutherford estate at Allamuchy, N. J., 
at Fisher’s Island, at the late Mr. Moen’s and Mr. Bayard Thayer’s pre- 
serves in Massachusetts, where English pheasants are reared for battue 
shooting, a few retrievers are kept, and we occasionally see one or two 
at the New York Dog Show. These are mainly of the smooth variety, 
but from time to time a rough or curly coated specimen has been shown. 
The case is very different in England, where retrievers are frequently 
one of the best-represented breeds at the various dog shows and much 
attention is paid to their improventent. The breed is supposed to have 
its origin mainly in what has been for many years called the Labrador or 
lesser Newfoundland, a dog that could not have originated in Labrador, 
but undoubtedly owed its origin to animals brought as ship’s dogs by 
vessels from Europe. When we first became acquainted with the retriever 
he was much more wavy in coat than the modern specimens, the change 
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