Probably there would be no great difficulty training a dog to drop a
hare, or anything else, at the approach of somebody other than its
master. Dogs are sometimes trained to lie down, without receiving any
signal or order, when their owners meet friends and stop to talk. One
old gamekeeper would consider his dogs to be very ill-mannered if
they did not lie down of their own accord when he stopped walking.
Another keeper has trained his dog to quite an out-of-the-way trick,
which is to the keeper's personal advantage, if highly detrimental
to his duties. The trick is for the dog, on command, to spit from
his mouth any food he may be eating. The keeper will take his dog to
a public-house, and set the example of throwing him biscuits, which
he will eat greedily. He will then make a boast about the dog's
obedience (in the shooting field, by the way, we have never known a
more disobedient animal, though he is exceedingly clever). Eventually
the keeper wagers a pint of beer to a quart that the dog not only will
cease eating biscuits on command, but will eject any crumbs from his
mouth, and not touch them again until so ordered. Many a pot of beer
has the dog won for his master by this trick. When the two go home, it
is the dog that finds the way.
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