The gamekeeper's retriever will learn to discover the whereabouts of
every hedgehog in a ditch. A clever dog will find in a few hours as
many hedgehogs as a week of trapping will secure--miles of hedges may
be cleared in a day in the summer. The dog must be kept under absolute
control, lest he disturb sitting birds, thereby, perhaps, doing as
much damage as might the hedgehogs. Almost any dog may be trained to a
particular work, such as playing the bloodhound's part, and following
the trail of men, whether friends or strangers--even terriers may
become useful trackers. The night-dogs used by gamekeepers--crosses
between mastiffs and bulldogs--will follow poachers through the woods
during the blackest hours of night.
A retriever is wonderfully useful for many purposes besides recovering
game. A dog, which had never seen a cricket ball, was with us when we
chanced to be crossing a field, at dusk, where a ball had been lost in
thick cow-parsley in the shade of trees. The cricketers appealed for
our help; we cleared the course, and set on the dog. She took the wind,
trotted along, turned suddenly, ran straight for a score of yards, and
came back, the lost ball in her mouth. Perhaps she worked it out in her
own mind that as no shot had been fired there was no game to follow,
and the ball-scent must therefore be the one she was required to track.
No doubt she would have left the line of the ball if the scent of
anything in the shape of dead game had reached her sensitive nose.
* * * * *