778 
FOREST AND STREAM 
June 21, 1913 
his fox-like tail, and he is the only one of the 
three of us comfortably warm. But just listen 
to those blackducks as their trembling quack 
reaches us from out there in the bay! Buff 
hears them, too, and quick as lightning his 
ears prick as he raises his head. If you touch 
him now you will feel him trembling, but not 
with cold, only suppressed excitement. And 
now the east begins to pale, and presently ob¬ 
jects are dimly discernible. Those old stake 
butts out there stuck up through the sand look 
like a flock of geese, while in the gray light, the 
bridge spanning the North Creek looms up like 
a church spire. We hear the winnow of wings 
as ducks fly from the salt creeks where they 
have spent the night, and as they join their 
companions in the bay in front of us they create 
quite a commotion among them. 
Presently we see a black line on the glassy 
surface of the water, which slowly develops 
into a flock of twenty birds or more. The tide 
is almost up to our blind this morning, and 
everything seems to favor us. The ducks are 
now in plain sight—foxy old beggars. Some of 
them know the danger zone of this shore from 
years of constant persecution. About two hun¬ 
dred yards away they flap their wings and preen 
their feathers as the rising sun begins to warm 
them, and now I guess we will “show the dog.” 
Reaching into the back pocket of my hunting 
coat, I pull out a hard rubber ball. Just look 
at “Buff,” he has been waiting my every move¬ 
ment; see the pupils of his eyes dilate as he 
sees the ball! Dad you ever see such concen¬ 
tration as he watches that sphere of rubber! 
Next to his master, it is the dearest thing to 
him on earth. One bounce of it upon the 
kitchen floor will lure him from the finest dish 
of roast beef scraps and gravy without a 
moment’s hesitation. 
I can divine your thoughts without much 
study now. You are thinking “what a shame to 
scare those ducks,” and that perhaps they may 
come on shore later on as the tide begins to 
fall, and you can not help feeling certain that 
every duck will “jump” as soon as they see the 
dog. But wait, you watch the ducks, and what¬ 
ever you do, don’t shoot until I give the word, 
for it is the sure ruination of a Toling dog to 
shoot over him while he is outside the blind. 
If you do so, your dog will soon want the first 
shot himself, and when the birds come close, in 
all probability he will plunge in after them with¬ 
out waiting for the gun. 
Smooth patches of sand stretch out upon 
each side of us and afford a perfect footing for 
the dog, and we can play him upon either side 
of the blind. I toss the ball, and away goes 
Buff; picking it up, he canters back and drops 
it in my hand. Out again goes ball and dog. I 
watch your face and it is a study, as through 
the “peekhole” in the seaweed you anxiously 
watch the birds, and this is what you see: With 
stretched necks and wondering eyes, every duck 
looks intently at the dog, and as the ball falls 
in among some dead seaweed, causing him to 
use his nose to find it, his busy tail works and 
wiggles above the beach grass, and a dozen 
birds turn and swim for shore, their necks a 
second ago stretched so long now disappear, as 
they fold them in, and with soft meamp-amp, 
meamp they swim rapidly toward us. with just a 
gentle air of wind behind them. Buff plays 
beautifully, returning with the ball even faster 
than he romps after it. Blow round the birds 
look with their necks drawn in, giving them a 
stupid appearance, and the sunlight shimmer¬ 
ing from the yellow bills of the drakes. Now 
as the dog comes toward us again, the hot scent 
of blackduck smites his sensitive nostrils; and 
stopping with upraised paw, he looks toward 
them, but a chirp brings him back to us. Not 
for worlds would he refuse to “play.” See him 
tremble as we push up the safeties of our guns. 
Here are the birds right against us, though not 
well bunched, being strung out across our front. 
They are only thirty-five yards or so away when 
Buff drops the ball into my open palm for the 
last time, and I whisper, “Down.” Now then, 
there is one of two things to do, we may either 
raise up and shoot, picking out our birds and 
trying to stop one with each barrel, or remain 
quiet until the ducks begin to get uneasy, and 
not seeing the dog, start to swim away, when 
they will invariably bunch. 
If you can forget the freezing nights and 
blustery days, when you have almost perished 
waiting for a shot, or perhaps the long crawls 
through slush or mud, when trying to stalk 
these wariest of all their kind, then let us each 
try and make a double and be satisfied. But if 
you have only occasionally had a flock shot and 
would like one now, we will hold our fire and 
so decide to do. See that old drake stretch his 
neck and swim up and down, looking with the 
keenest of all eyes, and turning slowly from us; 
the birds swim together, with their heads turned 
sideways, looking over their shoulders at the 
blind. I nod, and the two pairs of 12 -bore 
barrels loaded with 3^2 drams of Dead Shot 
smokeless and i]4 oz. No. 2 , poke out above 
the fringe of seaweed of the blind. As we raise 
to shoot. Buff peeks over the blind beside me. 
With a whimper and stiffened sinews, he awaits 
the report. Both shots snap out as one, and 
into the air seven terrified birds spring straight 
up, three of their number falling to our second 
barrels There are two cripples, one of which 
swims about in little circles, shot through the 
head in front of the eyes, and wading off as 
far as hip rubbers will allow, we each kill our 
bird. 
Buff by this time has almost reached the 
nearest drifting victims. Watch him swim! 
There is only one breed of dog could catch him 
now, and that the Toling dog. No need to tell 
him to retrieve. Dropping his bird on the sand, 
he plunges in again and again until the eighth 
and last duck is safely recovered. Buff takes a 
roll in the sand and a shake, and trotting up to 
me, rubs against my leg, and while he looks 
up into my face, I stroke his wet hair—wet only 
on the outside, for no water ever penetrates to 
the skin through that otter coat—and if he and 
I were alone, I would take his honest head be¬ 
tween my hands and whisper in his ear, “Good 
boy,” while with a funny little growl in his 
throat he would say in his own way, “We did 
the trick.” He always looks for this following 
a successful tole. 
As a surf dog the Toler has no equal, and 
will persevere again and again until at last he 
stems the undertow. Last winter I feared I had 
lost Buff upon two occasions. Shooting from 
this very blind, I wing-broke a blackduck, and 
giving chase, the dog swam after his bird right 
out to sea beyond my anxious sight. The tide 
had turned, and I ran along the shore with 
frantic haste trying to locate a boat, away past 
Read Head there, you see, two miles below us, 
until at last I gave it up and sorrowfully re¬ 
turned to fetch my gun, which I left behind in 
the blind. My dog’s few little imperfections 
were all forgotten, and every cross word spoken 
to him regretted; but to my utter surprise and 
joy, upon reaching the blind, there lay the game 
little dog with the duck beside him. The dis¬ 
tance he swam by conservative estim.ation 
through the ice-cold water, must have exceeded 
three miles, and he seemed none the worse for it. 
Upon the other occasion while flight shoot¬ 
ing by moonlight up the wide creek you see 
beyond the bridge there, a wing-tipped duck 
fell among the floating, grinding ice cakes, 
rushing together with the force of the heavy 
incoming tide. Away went Buff right into the 
worst of it, both dog and bird disappearing be 
neath the floe. It seemed ages until his head 
at last appeared in the moon blaze with the bird 
safely held between his jaws. And now let me 
tell you that ducks will not tole to windward. 
They will come to the dog across wind, or as 
you have just seen, from the windward, and also 
when there is no wind. Blackducks tole with 
their heads drawn down, bluebills with their 
heads up and necks stuck out, butterballs on their 
tails almost, and all the mergansers with heads 
erect and necks straight up. Perhaps the Toling 
dog is most deadly when shooting ducks before 
they leave the lakes in the fall, and when the 
birds are young. I have seen young blackducks 
swim so near the blind, that their pads could be 
distinctly seen beneath the water. Bluebills are 
said to be the easiest of all birds to tole, but 
although I have had many fine shots at them 
in this manner, my personal experience teaches 
me that the blackduck toles the best, and I 
have seen old wary birds in the month of Janu¬ 
ary, act like perfect fools at sight of a well 
played dog. They seem to be hypnotized, and 
when once their gaze has become centered 
upon the dog, will scarcely notice moving ob¬ 
jects. 
It is as natural for a Toling dog to retrieve 
and play with a stick or other object thrown, as 
it is for a setter to point, or a coach dog to 
follow a team. Most duck shooters use a stick 
to tole their dogs with, and some a lot of 
sticks, but the properly trained dog needs but 
the one object to work upon. If space per¬ 
mitted, I should like to give my method of 
training these dogs, but I must forbear. 
The history of the Toling dog from all I 
can gather, is as follows: In the late sixties, 
James Allen, of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, secured 
from the captain of a corn-laden schooner, a 
female flat-coated English retriever; color, dark 
red; weight, about forty pounds. Mr. Allen had 
her lined with a Labrador dog, which was a fine 
retriever. The first litter of pups made very 
large dogs, even larger than their parents, and 
were splendid duck dogs. Several of these 
bitches were bred to a brown cocker spaniel, 
imported into this province from Massachusetts. 
These dogs had been bred throughout Yarmouth 
county, particularly at Little River and 
Comeau’s Hill, and the majority of them are a 
reddish-brown color. Later on a cross of the 
Irish setter was introduced. Occasionally a 
black pup appears, and of course makes just as 
good a retriever and water dog as his red 
brothers, but is not so valuable, because he can- 
