UPLAND SHOOTING. 
185 
is a necessary accomplishment for a Setter or Pointer in this 
country ; that it would be an advantage everywhere ; and that 
a dog can be precisely as steady fetching every bird, as he can 
if incapable of so doing. 
But he must invariably be made, not only to down-charge, 
but to point dead , before he is allowed to fetch. If the second 
duty is neglected, it will be a very little while before the ani 
mal begins to rush in at every shot, without charging. 
One great difficulty here is, that no one in America having 
gamekeepers, the hunting of the dog, so soon as he is turned 
out of the breaker’s hands, falls directly on the master-—who is 
very generally, even if himself a very passably good shot, unac¬ 
quainted with the methods of dog-breaking, and unqualified by 
his habits of life, for taking the trouble of going systematically 
to work with the animal, so as to keep him up to all that he 
knows, and to prevent him from either acquiring new bad tricks> 
or neglecting his old teachings. It is scarcely too much to say, 
that one half of the dogs in the United States, which go out of 
the breaker’s into the master’s hands valuable brutes, are, at the 
end of twelve months, worthless. 
I should strongly recommend young sportsmen, when pur¬ 
chasing new dogs, to take an opportunity, if possible, of seeing 
them hunted several times by the breaker, and of endeavoring 
to observe his peculiar modes of speech and action with the dog ; 
and at all events to learn those points of education, on which 
he insists, in order that they may guide themselves in their own 
conduct toward the animal thereby, and insist on the animal 
acting in all respects up to his previous teaching. Old sports¬ 
men, of course, have their own ways of having their dogs 
trained, and on these they are so trained before buying them. 
Another thing is worthy of observation—a dog never ought to 
be lent. I would not lend my dog to a better sportsman than 
myself—because no two. sportsmen hunt their dogs, as I have 
observed, exactly alike, and I wish my dog to hunt as I want 
him to hunt, not better than he does, nor worse. It is impossi¬ 
ble to imagine the difference of the intelligence of two dogs, 
