The power of scent varies much with different dogs: usually a slow dog
makes better use of its scenting nerves than the fast galloper. It is
pretty to watch a good retriever following a wounded bird over ground
alive with unwounded game, yet never turning aside from the one trail.
A dog could hardly distinguish one partridge from another--probably
it is by the scent of blood that the one line can be followed so
accurately. Sportsmen do not always give the dogs fair chances; they
throw them cheese at lunch-time, or perhaps allow bagged game or
themselves to taint the wind, so foiling other trails. In one case
a sportsman blamed a new retriever for not finding a bird which was
actually lying beneath his own boots. And even a first-rate retriever
will sometimes tread on the very bird he is seeking, without finding it.
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