
i 
The Ruffed Grouse 
Se 9e8 OG breeders who 
- produce setters 
largely for New 
England and 
other sections 
where cover 
shooting is the 
rule, are not 
agreed as to 
what is the best 
type of setter 
for this work, although most sportsmen 
who shoot much in cover know a good 
ruffed grouse dog when they have seen 
him at work. 
This difference of opinion, as it exists 
to-day, is largely the product of our 
bench show system of selecting terrier 
or poodle men who never go afield to 
judge our setters. In the early days 
of bench shows it was the sportsmen’s 
organizations that gave the shows. 
Sportsmen who owned or bred dogs for 
field work were selected for judges, and 
these men, with an eye for utility type, 
were not so free, as present-day judges 
are, in passing out blue ribbons to dogs, 
whose chief qualifications for notice 
was a handsome, useless head and coat. 
The early setter judges were attracted 
by setter beauty, but mere useless 
beauty alone would not win high honors 
in a working-dog class. What the 
judges demanded was first, good tools 
to work with, and then the more beauty 
the better. Under this system of 
judges we had among the winners such 
handsome and useful dogs as Druid, 
Queen Mab, Paris, Clip and others of 
a similar type, which were not only 
handsome dogs, but they had field-trial 
records to prove the worth of their 
working parts and the correctness of 
the judges’ awards. 
A ees handsome utility type of dog 
has all but ceased to exist. In the 
place of this type we have a distinct 
show type, of little value as a field dog, 
and the small wiry, racing, field-trial 
setter of the South and West. These 
two types have been bred long enough 
to the business for which they exist to 
breed comparatively true to their re- 
spective types. They serve the purpose 
for which they have been created. 
The sportsman who looks for a setter 
to use in cover shooting has these 
created groups to select from. He may 
buy a young dog with a long string 
of blue ribbon ancestors and near rela- 
528 
Caution and Bird Sense 
are Cover Dog Essentials 
By C. B. WHITFORD 
tives, a winner at good shows under 
popular judges. 
is something of an expert, he will feel 
that he has bought a lot of approved 
setter type in the near and remote 
ancestry of his purchase; and the dog 
of authentic type ought to prove a good 
field dog. 
But the dog fails in the field. In the 
course of time his owner comes to know 
that his dog’s near and remote ances- 
tors were mere show dogs without the 
instinctive and physical qualities that 
are the product of persistent culture. 
Drake this type of setter, 
the sportsman turns to the field 
trial group, and when he finally gets a 
young setter whose sire was a cham- 
pion, and whose dam’s sire and other 
ancestors were champions, he feels cer- 
tain that he has a real field dog, bred 
to the work required of him. But when 
his trainer turns him loose he goes 
galloping through the _huckleberry 
bushes and alders at about a ten or 
twelve mile an hour gait. Possibly the 
dog will not get lost, but he will scour 
a great deal of country and see many 
birds on the wing. 
Of course the dog would point 
staunchly if he had a chance, but there 
is small chance of that kind of a dog 
getting points in a ruffed grouse coun- 
try unless he happens to be near a 
bevy of quail. To point a bevy of a 
dozen or fifteen quail moving through 
the field is no great trick for a gallop- 
ing bird dog. The scent is strong and 
the dog is almost sure to feel it in time 
to check his pace and locate the birds. 
At that sort of work in wide open 
country the popular field trial dog is 
of some use. It does not matter how 
fast he goes for the birds will stop 
him. However, the modern field trial 
dog has been overbred to his special 
style of hunting and has developed into 
a bevy dog, with no patience for work 
on single birds. He will not do for the 
East, and this the sportsman who wants 
a cover dog will learn in good time. 
B UT what kind of a setter is he to buy 
that will meet his requirements? 
There is no large special group of 
setters bred to the requirements of a 
cover dog. When the sportsmen and 
breeders who need such a dog get to- 
gether and go seriously about the busi- 
ness of creating what they need, we 
Naturally, unless he. 
Dog 
will have a group of setters whose 
physical and psychical being will fit 
them for cover work, just as the field 
trial dog is fitted for his work, and 
just as the show dog is made to suit his 
particular field. 
OOD judges of field trial conforma- 
tion can form a fairly good opinion 
of a setter’s worth for cover work by 
seeing him move in the field. They can 
also form a fairly accurate judgment of 
a dog’s temperament by seeing him at 
work, although he does not do any ac- 
tual bird work. However, the only cer- 
tain test of his merits is to see him on 
game. If he is of the proper physical 
type, covers his ground properly, and 
uses judgment in handling game, his 
general worth is thus made manifest. 
Any other form or test involves a great 
deal of guess-work. So that if a group 
of setters are to be created for cover 
work the foundation for such a breed 
should be laid with dogs which have 
proven their worth in public tests. 
If field trials are held in the cover 
country for the avowed purpose of 
creating a cover dog of a particular 
type, it will not take long to establish 
such a type and maintain it. To do 
this effectually there should be a com- 
munity of effort to reach the same 
ideal, for if several organizations are 
to struggle with a variety of ideals the 
result will be a lack of desired uni- 
formity. 
With all the field trial organizations 
federated into a parent organization 
this difficulty would be easily over- 
come, as the several individual associa- 
tions would each have a voice in the 
parent organization in the matter of 
setting up an ideal and framing rules 
and regulations for establishing a type 
that would conform to the accepted 
ideal. 
pe popular field trial dog has not 
been created this way. He has 
rather come into being through the 
agency of natural selection, ‘carried on 
over a period of nearly fifty years. 
There has been nobody in authority to 
check undesirable development, which 
is as much a part of good breeding as 
the development of desirable qualities. 
The modern field trial is simply the 
result of breeding to a performance 
pedigree. By this process these dogs 
(Continued on page 564) 
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