76 
Beagles and Beagling 
sounds and the time for this is when he is feeding. 
Beating on tin pans, dropping boards flat upon each 
other and various noises of this kind while the pupil's 
attention is engrossed with the meal before him are 
suggested as preliminaries, but while this is being 
done, not the slightest attention must be paid to the 
puppy. If he becomes frightened move farther 
away, but leave him entirely to his own devices. 
When he discovers that these noises have no con¬ 
nection with you he will soon become pacified and 
return to his feed. Later on it is well to introduce 
a cap pistol and as he becomes accustomed to this, 
introduce a revolver with blank cartridges. It is 
not advisable to introduce a shot gun at this stage, 
but once the pupil becomes accustomed to the sound 
of a revolver shot—and he will, if the shooting is 
not done within sight of him or too near where 
he is eating—he is ready for the shot gun which 
may be used in the field, but not until he has taken 
to hunting and will work fairly well. The time to 
shoot is when the dog is driving and intensely 
absorbed in his work. This shooting, however, 
must be done when the dog is some distance away 
ancl the teacher should be out of sight of the dog 
when he fires. The load should be very light at 
first. If he stops work at the sound of the report 
and comes to you, go right along and pay no atten¬ 
tion to him. Eventually he will be hunting again 
and if it should be your good fortune to start 
another rabbit, try it once more, but again take 
pains to be out of sight of the dog. He must not 
know that the shooting has the least connection 
with you. The chances are that if the pupil has 
