FINISHING TOUCHES 121 
as said: “Ned, old fellow, they’ve gone on— 
let’s go get ’em.” It was a breach of good 
manners for her to belittle the other dog’s 
point even after she had tested the situation 
for herself—yet it did make it hard to punish 
or scold her for locating the birds that Ned 
had not yet quite nailed. All such things 
must be taken into consideration—you must 
be fair to your dog—else there will be a 
loss of confidence that may cost you dearly. 
Punishment in a case like that, unless mighty 
carefully and correctly administered, would 
be about as easy a way as any to make a 
dog a blinker. 
So many people are too hard and fast in 
their rules. They think a thing should be 
done a certain way and so they blindly ad¬ 
here to policies, based upon arbitrary prece¬ 
dent, that fail utterly to be tempered by a 
consideration of conditions at hand. A 
rule of thumb policy will not give you as 
broad gauged a dog—not one so apt to rise 
to the occasion and meet new emergencies 
as they arise in the work. I always try to 
figure out each case and invariably give the 
dog the benefit of any doubt. Then, if they 
