THE HUNTING DOG 



353 



chase, give tongue and hunt out the adjoining 

 country, he decided to give the worst one 

 away — break the other even if he had to kill 

 him and to get some real pleasurable shoot- 

 ing over his favorite. The first thing that he 

 did was to present the discarded pup to a 

 voung man to whom he owed many a kind 

 favor. Then he started out to break the black 

 pup which he had reserved for himself. 



He wisely left his gun at home the first few 

 times, and by using a check cord, soon had 

 the pup so that he would point and drop at 

 command when the birds flushed. The first 

 trip to the field with his gun, however, proved 

 disheartening. With the long cord dangling 

 to him the dog found birds and pointed them, 

 but when the report of the gun accompanied 

 the flushing of the birds, the pup broke and 

 chased. He was then caught and flogged. 

 Then he sulked from the pounding which he 

 had received and refused to hunt until the 

 check cot"d was removed. This done, he 

 worked all right, except that he continued to 

 break shot unless his master was where he 

 could fall on him and hold him until the 

 birds were out of sight. My friend, however, 

 was pleased with the bird-finding qualities of 

 his puppies and overlooked a little shot break- 

 ing, to the extent of inviting me to join him 

 in one hunt over the pair. By this time he 

 spoke of his black pup as a confirmed shot 

 breaker, and a bad runaway unless he was 

 closely watched. 



I won't attempt to describe the trip which I 

 had with him. The disgust of it hangs over 

 me yet. Suffice to say that the black pup was 

 *a bit rank when put down, and like a mis- 

 chievous child which receives unreasonable 

 and badly miscalculated punishment instead 

 of careful handling, went from bad to worse 

 — broke shot, flashed, chased, was peppered 

 with a charge of hot, caught and whipped. 

 Then he broke away again, and later in the 

 day, when sneaking through the underbrush 

 to escape punishment, received an accidental 

 charge of shot in his shoulder, which about 

 finished him. The liver-and-white pup did 

 good work that day, but was at the height of 

 his career. Lacking in vim and snap, inside 

 of a month he developed into a typical plug 

 shooting dog, and before the season was over 

 becam.e the worst kind of a "duffer" — potter- 

 ing, false pointing, dodging the thickets and 

 lying down to drink in every mud hole. 



A detailed account of the education of the 

 third pup would amount to a treatise on 

 breaking which would require many pages. 

 But a brief account of his development, as 

 given to me by his owner, may prove en- 

 lightening. For about a week after arriving 

 at his new home, he was given just enough 

 yard breaking to make him acquainted with 

 the new master, but not enough to put the 

 least damper on his spirits, for his owner was 

 quick to discover that the dog possessed a 

 quality which, instead of being destroyed, 



should be carefully nursed and controlled. 

 For the next two weeks he was allowed to 

 hunt in his own independent way. No check 

 cord was used at first and no gun carried. 

 Gradually, though, the dog began to feel the 

 companionship of his master. He learned that 

 the man was as game as he was. There was 

 no frantic yelling nor whistling. If he was 

 out of sight for five minutes, his master had 

 sense enough to know, judging from his 

 course, about where he would turn up. And 

 then, when instead of a recall, fie received a 

 wave of the hand, indicating a big stubble 

 farther on, he went merrily to work, hunted 

 it and swung back toward the man, ready for 

 his next order. From that time on he began 

 to pay more attention to the whistle. It be- 

 came a means of communication which he ap- 

 preciated, when he learned that it was not the 

 forerunner of a whipping. Punishment came 

 to him in due season, but only when he un- 

 derstood the reason for it. His education on 

 birds was carried along on the same lines. In 

 this, the check cord taught him that it was 

 not his business to chase the covey out of 

 sight, and his master's vigilance was not re- 

 laxed until long after the habit of holding his 

 points was firmly fixed. I might almost say 

 that the vigilance was never relaxed, for the 

 best dogs, like the best horses, must always 

 be kept in hand. If you drive a gamey horse 

 with the reins hanging on the dashboard and 

 your mind on other things, you deserve all 

 the trouble that comes to you, and the same is 

 true in the field, if you handle your good dog 

 carelessly. 



This pup for a long time when the scat- 

 tered birds dropped in bad places was not 

 asked to do any work on singles. His first 

 work was on coveys, and after a covey was 

 flushed, he was ordered on to find another. 

 This called for less checking on the part of 

 his handler, and gradually as he became 

 steadier he was allowed to pick up the single's 

 when they scattered along the edge of the 

 woods. Later on, going deeper into the woods 

 and into bad thickets, the singles sometimes 

 flushed wild on all sides -of him, and it was 

 then that his master's judgment in going slow 

 was fully repaid. A half broken pup would 

 surely go to pieces, and an old one is some- 

 times badly broken up by that unexpected 

 whir of wings to the right, U ft, and all about 

 him. But with his careful and thorough 

 schooling this discarded pup became as re- 

 liable on singles as on coveys, and outclassed 

 the ordinary "single-bird dog" by about fifty 

 to one. It is a great mistake to think that a 

 dog must have the edge taken off of him and 

 his pace restricted in order to become a sin- 

 gle—bird dog. It is simply a matter of con- 

 trol ; and let me add that this control is a 

 nice thing. You can control a high-strung 

 dog by clubbing him, just about as you can 

 control an unruly vessel by staving a hole in 

 her bottom. 



