POINTERS AND SETTERS

Twenty-five years ago the fashion was to decry driving game, and to hold

up, as the good old sporting plan, the use of gun-dogs in the pursuit of

partridges and grouse. But this was only a fashion of the fashionless.

Shooters were not so childish as to decline to shoot in one method

because they could not do it in the other, and half the grouse moors and

three-quarters of the partridge ground then, as now, could not be worked

with pointers and setters without sacrifice of a large portion of the

game. Either it was driven away for wiser neighbours to bag, or else it

died of old age after doing as much harm to its successors as any early

Hanoverian king of England—that is, as much as possible. The reasons for

the growth of wildness are many, but in dealing with dogs it is only

necessary to take the birds as we find them, and to get them in the most

sporting fashion that is left open to us.

At the same time, it may be remarked that the Press changed completely

round after the publication of the Badminton shooting books, and it

became as unfashionable to write of shooting over dogs as it had been to

write of driving.

But the views expressed in the Badminton books were drawn from Yorkshire

and Norfolk, and the result was that this time both sportsmen and the

Press attempted to force an imitation of those methods that in those

counties had only been adopted as a choice of two evils, when birds

became so wild that it was a question of driving or no game. This

fashion has made the act of shooting take rank above the all-embracing

“sportsmanship” in the minds of those who have grasped at and acquired

the first-named part without aiming at the whole. But this view is not

likely to last longer than the mechanical part of shooting remains a

difficulty. It is little likely to do so for long, with so many shooting

schools, where clay birds can be sent over the gun in streams at all

angles and all speeds. Here the management of two, three, or four guns

can be learnt, ambition can be served, and after that a decline in

keenness will generally set in. One of the greatest and best shooters of

the seventies and eighties, one who carried most weight in the Badminton

book, seems to have almost given up, and it may fairly be assumed that

when the mechanical part of shooting is once gained to perfection, it

leaves no room for further ambition.

But this is far from being true of shooting over dogs. There is so much

more to learn than the mere mechanical part of shooting. Whether one

breeds dogs, breaks them, works them, or has them worked by others, they

are a constant source of anticipation, and anticipation in sport is of

far greater interest than realisation.

Possibly one does no good to the interest of anticipation by attempting

to assist sportsmen to the choice or breaking of better dogs. Those the

author began with were his ideals until he knew of better, and a

super-ideal would be useless were it not impossible. But when a poor

team of dogs may lead to the abandonment of canine assistance in

shooting, it is another matter, and everybody who knows the pleasure

given by dogs should strive to improve the race.

For the last forty years there have been held public field trials on

game for pointers and setters. Whether these events have been worked off

upon paired partridges in the spring, or contested by finding young

broods of grouse just before the opening of the season, they have given

breeders and sportsmen the chance of breeding by selection for pace,

nose, quartering, and breaking. Unfortunately, they have left out

stamina. There have been what were at the time called “stamina trials,”

but as they were sometimes won by slow dogs they did not merit the

high-sounding title, and for real stamina trials one has to go to

America.

Trials for ability to stay are much more necessary now than ever before,

because the dog shows have ceased to be any assistance to breeders of

working dogs. When it was possible to compare at shows the external

forms of pointers and setters that had succeeded at field trials, they

were of some use, on the ground that true formation is suggestive of

stamina. But since separate breeds of dogs have been evolved by the

shows for the shows, the working dogs are either not sent to them, or do

not win if they are sent, so that the show-winning pointer or setter is

taken to be bad and of a degraded sort unless the contrary is proved.

This is a great pity, for there is no doubt that stamina is the

foundation of almost every other virtue in the pointer and setter.

A dog that cannot go on long has the period of his daily breaking

restricted, he does not learn wisdom, he does not gain enough experience

to make a proper use of his scenting powers, and if, at last, success in

breaking is achieved, then the reward for labour expended is half an

hour’s fast work instead of half a day of it.

This means that the shooter must have a large kennel and one or two

kennel men, instead of a small kennel easily looked after by a

gamekeeper without hindrance to his other work. The question then

becomes serious, and those who live in London or in the neighbourhood of

big towns usually have not the necessary room for the healthy

maintenance of a large kennel of dogs. If they take moors in Scotland or

Ireland, the kennels there are usually only of service in the shooting

season, especially if the moors are not taken upon long lease. Scotland

is bad wintering for dogs bred in England, and although it must not be

forgotten that the Duke of Gordon, Lord Lovat, and many other sportsmen

wintered their famous kennels of setters in Scotland, their dogs came to

have coats much thicker than are to be seen now upon setters—that is,

they had less feather but more body covering. At least, that was the

opinion formed by the writer on paying a visit to the late Lord Lovat’s

kennel in the early seventies. At that time this kennel and that of Lord

Cawdor were the only representatives of the old black-white-and-tan

kennel of the Duke of Gordon, although the blood of the latter sort was

widely spread as crosses in other races of setters. This was obviously

so in the black-and-tan kennel of the late Lord Rosslyn (who introduced

bloodhound to get the colour), and in that of many English setter

kennels. They were known as English setters, and shown as such, only

because there was a mistaken idea that Gordons were black-and-tan,

without white.

Stamina, then, must be improved if dogs are to be generally popular

where they can be used. But some few of the winning field trial workers

would look foolish after 30 minutes’ experience of a bed of strong

heather. Shooters at Aldridge’s annual sale are frequently observed

purchasing two or three little highly broken weeds that could not

possibly give satisfaction. There is often a great deal of hustle, fuss,

and fictitious pace about the very little dogs that are now sometimes

bred, but their bolt is soon shot, and they are a hindrance to sport for

the rest of the day. The old dogs that were regarded as stayers did not

look to be in such a mighty hurry; they had a long easy stride, with no

up and down action (it is that which tires). As being much bigger, they

were probably much faster than the little hustler division now so

numerous, and some of them could keep up the pace all day. Many could do

a half-day’s work, and some of those that were _not_ regarded as stayers

were brilliantly fast and slashingly bold for two hours in the morning

and another two in the afternoon. The author remembers one of the latter

that after winning the National Championship at the Shrewsbury Meeting

in the spring put out his shoulder. The mend was a bad one, and although

this accident destroyed the stamina it did not interfere much with the

pace of this extraordinary dog. Afterwards, for some years, he could

beat the best in a most successful field trial kennel for 20 minutes,

but then he was done for. What has been said about the uselessness of

non-stayers may be emphasised by the experience of this dog, for,

although he was often taken out in the spring as a “trial horse” for

young ones, it was thought useless to put him into a shooting team for

Scotland. That is to say, the most brilliant 20 minutes worker was

useless then, and is so now.

It is not often that absolute proof of the value of any individual

points in the dog is obtained. But here was one, proving that shoulders

have little effect upon speed, but are all-important for staying. When

Mr. A. E. Butter’s Faskally Bragg was winning Champion honours on the

bench and in the field too, we had the exhibition of a heavy-shouldered

dog winning at the shows, where true formation for staying was unknown,

and also in the field trials, where it was never tried. Nose, speed, and

beauty of attitude in pointing and backing placed this dog at the top,

but had there been real stamina trials he would never have been heard

of. Once the writer saw him on a freshly-turned sandy plough, where he

was hunted against Mr. A. T. Williams’ very small pointer, Rose of

Gerwn. The latter went 100 yards for every 20 that Bragg tumbled over.

Yet here was your show Champion beaten to a standstill, on the question

of external form alone, by an ugly-headed little pointer that could not

have won a prize at a show in a class by herself. Yet for heart and

courage, for pace, and probably for stamina, there have been few to

equal her in the last decade.

The dog-show setters are most beautiful creatures, but the points on

which they win here and in America are not the points that a sportsman

requires. “Feather” goes a long way towards victory, but in America they

_shear_ their setters before the shooting season opens. The reason for

this is that the burrs there are not only a nuisance, as they sometimes

are here, but a total prevention of sport. Any coat that collects them

brings the dog to a standstill in a few minutes. They are much smaller,

but the spikes are sharper and stronger than those of the English plant.

Slack loin is only a drawback at the shows, but it _stops_ a dog in

work. A long, refined head is a beauty at the shows, but it holds no

brains that amount to anything. But worse than all this is the fact that

the hunting instinct has lapsed in the show breeds. To be induced to

range they must be _excited_. Now, in the truly bred pointer or setter

you may start by repressing, go on by directing, and end by many

“dressings,” but you cannot weaken the hunting instinct, however you try

to do it. In the former sort you have to wind up the clock and put the

hands right at every turn, in the latter you have to put the regulator

right once and the works will do the rest. It is impossible to endow

with instinct at all, and especially is it impossible when excitement

has taken the place of the hunting habit. You have only the excitement

on which to work to re-create a love of hunting, at the same time that

you have to repress excitement in the interests of breaking.

It is not very wonderful that show-bred dogs cannot win field trials. To

ask a breaker to educate them is a little worse than to turn Irish

salmon into the Thames and expect them to come back there. When the last

Thames salmon was killed the last instinct to return to the Thames

vanished from _Salmo salar_. You can no more get it back than you can

make a field trial dog out of a show-bred one, or bring the dead

instinct to life.

Having got the right blood in the form of a puppy of ten or twelve

months old, and one that has learnt no bad manners at walk or in some

bad breaker’s hands, there is a straight road to success, but one that

is not always taken. The first thing to teach a puppy is to understand

all you say to it. Until this has been accomplished, the loudest shouts

of “Down charge,” “Drop,” or any other order, are in danger of being

mistaken for just the opposite to what is intended. Most of the clever

breakers at field trials have unique signals, invented by themselves,

and practised by nobody else. It is a good way there, and in shooting,

because your dog is not then confused by orders given by other people.

One man drops his dog by bringing his stick to the ground, and signals

it forward by holding up his hand. The general practice is just the

reverse. It does not matter what signals or words of command are used if

they always mean the same for the dog.

[Illustration:

CAPT. H. HEYWOOD LONSDALE’S IGHTFIELD ROB ROY POINTING, AND BACKED BY

PITCHFORD RANGER

]

The more often orders are given, and obedience to them is enforced, the

more instinctive becomes the dog’s habit of obedience; but against this

must be placed the fact that a puppy should never be tired of a lesson.

A lesson, before entry on game, should always be only a part of a game

at romps to the dog. Consequently, it must not go on so long that the

puppy tires of romping, or be repeated so often in the game that the

youngster thinks it “a bore.”

Obedience is one thing, prompt obedience quite another; and it is the

latter that serves the sportsman, not the former. It is the last stage

of hand breaking to ensure prompt obedience when hesitation or

unwillingness has gone before. These two stages generally occur in

dropping to hand and gun lessons, and in answering whistle, all of which

will require a little pushing and pulling force to be used in the early

stages, until the meaning of the teacher is grasped by the pupil. Up to

this point the order has to be repeated many times as the force is being

used, in order that the pupil may grasp the meaning, which he will only

do gradually. But after the lesson has once been learnt it is a bad plan

to give any order twice. It should be once only, followed by obedience

or punishment. This sounds severe, but it is the method for saving the

necessity for severity in the future.

After the hand-breaking stage comes temptation during excitement, which

is a very different thing from mere “cussedness,” as the Americans call

it, in hand breaking, where a pupil only disobeys for the sake of

disobedience. That is the reason why prompt and instinctive obedience

has to be obtained before the canine pupil goes out into the fields or

on to the moors, and sees game. When this excitement begins, all

hand-breaking lessons may be forgotten on the spur of the moment, and

yet it is extremely important that they should not be, and that there

should be no necessity for punishment, and as little as possible for

restraint.

It is to avoid these misfortunes that hand breaking should culminate in

forced promptitude on the pupil’s part. Up to this time your puppy has

dropped and answered the whistle because it pleases you and does not

hurt him, and he has done it, possibly, as if he thought you took a

particular interest in seeing how long he could be about it. But in the

field, and in the presence of hares, such deliberation is a premium on

forgetfulness of the breaker’s existence. Then a hare is very likely

chased, and a season’s unnecessary work, and of a negative value, has

become obligatory in an instant.

On the other hand, if the last lessons in hand breaking are of a kind

which make the puppy think that a word and a blow are not separated by

distance between the man and dog, hares will never prove a trouble or

distance a danger in the field or on the moor.

The way the author brought about prompt obedience was by trickery.

Puppies romping in lines were ordered to drop, then the lines would be

passed round a tree in front of them, which would, by its position, give

a free run to the dogs of 40 or 50 yards when they were called on. But

the instant before they reached the limit of the cord the order to drop

would be given, so that any hesitation would inflict a sharp tumble by

reason of the full limit of the cord having been reached at a gallop.

One lesson of that sort gives the dog a sense of the wonderful powers of

his breaker, who may be hundreds of yards away when the sudden power is

exerted; and about two or three such experiences, in the last week of

hand breaking, give the man in the field apparently mesmeric powers over

his pupil. It need hardly be pointed out that, to succeed, the dog must

expect, or suspect, no trap. Consequently, he must be regularly

exercised in his cord, and the trick must not be repeated until the

former attempt has been totally forgotten. This can be the more readily

brought about by several times dropping the dogs in the ordinary way,

and allowing them to find themselves free when the order to come forward

is given. In the mind of the pupil, it must not be the cord, but the

breaker’s order, that does the jerking.

Usually the author has associated this jerk with the explosion of a

pistol, of course after making sure that the dogs did not fear a pistol,

and were not “gun-shy,” or to be made so. See what power this gives a

breaker at distances beyond the travel of his voice or whistle! A puppy

is ranging beautifully half a mile away nearly, and cannot hear your

whistle reminding it of its distance. In the contrariness of canine

nature, that is the exact instant the only hare in the parish will

select to jump up before your puppy’s nose. The strange form and sudden

appearance, as from nowhere, will surprise; another instant, the

ancestral wild beast of prey will take possession of your cherished pet,

now nearly in the next parish, and you would be helpless to intervene

but for the gun in your hand and for its associations with the tree and

the cord in the park. You fire at the exact instant before canine

surprise is succeeded by a burst of coursing speed, and your pupil is

glued to the ground, while your only hare is preserved from

extinguishing her race and your chances of a broken dog as well.

The worst of permitting puppies to chase once is that they soon learn to

chase the trail, or “drag,” of hare when none has been seen. It is

difficult to be sure when a puppy is doing this; but never wait until

you are sure, is the author’s suggestion: fire at once. Then, if your

young dog has been broken on practical lines, you by one operation serve

two ends, for you stop a chase and rebuke your dog if there was a hunt,

and if not, you have only given an unnecessary lesson in dropping to

shot, which generally does good and never any harm, for it disturbs game

far less than whistling or shouting.

It is not intended here to repeat the elementary advice about hand

breaking. It is much more simple to say that a puppy must be talked to

like a little child. It will be much quicker than the child to take a

meaning, but it remains a child, if a quick one, all the days of its

life.

If your puppy has unfortunately learnt to chase hares or to kill

chickens before you begin with it, severe measures will have to be taken

to cure these crimes; but this should not be done until after the pupil

has been entered to and become fond of game, so that it is essential to

enter a hare-chaser where there are no hares, and a chicken-killer where

there are no roosters. The love of one kind of game is half a cure of a

too energetic fondness for another, and in order to set up this love of

game to its fullest extent, your pupil must neither see hare nor think

hare until the entry on game is complete. If you thrash one minute for

chasing chickens, the next your pupil will be half-hearted about finding

partridges, and will probably blink them when found.

The author was very successful at field trials, and in having perfectly

obedient high rangers of wonderful courage and endurance, and this

success was attained on the principle of never giving the pupils a

chance to do wrong until they were well established in the practice of

doing right. That is to say, until they would quarter fast and freely,

and find and point game without caution, and back each other at any

distance, they were not tempted by the sight or scent of hares, or not

by intention. Afterwards they have to learn to hunt for partridges in

the midst of hares and with the scent of them everywhere, and it is only

by their extra fondness for winged game that they will hunt across and

across the foot scent of dozens of hares without taking any notice of

it, and will nevertheless point the body scent of a hare when they find

the beast in its seat.

All this comes to the high-couraged dog practically by nature, provided

the breaker begins at the right end of the education and takes step by

step, as suggested here in default of a better method. There will be no

shouting and storming, or whipcord and wailing, but a steady progress

towards perfection, granting always that the pupil has nose, sense,

pace, and stamina.

Pointing and backing may or may not come naturally when the youngster

finds that he cannot catch his birds after a few tries, but they are

easily encouraged to come sooner by the use of the voice on the

hand-broken pupil, or by the use of the check cord. It is, however, just

as well to let a puppy chase the birds until he naturally points them.

This is education of the best kind in “locating” the game, which implies

the quick recognition of the difference between body and foot scents of

birds. In the same way it is a good plan to let a puppy run in a few

times to a pointing dog to flush and chase his game. This is not doing

wrong, for up to this stage the dog will have received no intimation

that chasing game and flushing it are wrong, except that hereditary

instinct may prompt the puppy to point and also to back.

It is not well to insist upon instant dropping to wing, until a young

dog has learnt how to point steadily and to draw up boldly to the game

at the side of his breaker. This becomes a nerve-trying task if a sudden

rush of wings is also associated with orders to “drop,” and it is well

to confirm the natural attitude on point, which will generally be

beautiful, before running a risk of the young dog learning to confuse

the point with the order to drop to wing.

The rush in, on the rise of game, is better first checked by the hand

upon the collar, or on the cord, if one is used. There is no use in

calling “To-ho” to a pointing dog, or in using any words of caution. A

broken dog requires no caution, and a partly broken or unbroken one is

to be taught to rely upon his nose, and not on the breaker’s voice, for

his knowledge of when he should point. If the breaker knows best, where

is the use of the dog? If the latter points or draws and then moves on,

let him do it; it is educational, and one mistake may prevent a hundred;

but if you “to-ho” a false point you are making a bad dog by it, and if

you “to-ho” when there is game you are teaching the dog that you are

going to tell him when to point, and that you certainly cannot judge of

by the dog’s manner if he does not know himself.

One of the principal things to teach is quartering, and this is often

the natural outcome of walking directly up wind with your pupil. It is

generally instinctive to the well-bred dog to cross the wind to and fro.

But this natural instinct will be unhinged by any change of direction,

so that a breaker who started his puppy in different and changing

methods, in regard to the wind, would find him ranging, but not

quartering, and would observe the puppy at the end of a cast as likely

to turn down wind as up. For this reason, until a confirmed range has

been established by walking into the wind, with the puppy beating from

side to side of his breaker, no other method of beating a field should

be attempted. Even with the precaution of always walking into the wind,

the puppy is not unlikely to turn down wind at one end or the other of

his cast. That is a bad fault in itself, and bespeaks flighty

disposition, and a bad nose besides. There is always scent of kinds, we

may suppose, up wind of the puppy, which ought to turn his investigating

nose into the wind instead of the other way, as so often happens. The

breaker may be troubled to correct this habit, but, as it is partly

owing to the dog’s love of his breaker that he forgets the game and

turns back, it can be cured by making the puppy more fond of finding

game, and by tiring him, until he has to think of the nearest way. But

as for other reasons tiring a puppy in the breaking season is bad, when

no game is being shot, the trouble can be overcome by the breaker

walking near the hedge on the side of the field the pupil turns the

wrong way, and then, by the teacher making haste as the puppy approaches

that side, he will be automatically turned the right way. Strangely,

most puppies turn wrong at one end and not at the other. If they turn

wrong at both ends, they are probably hopeless fools that are not worth

breaking.

A want of good “backing” may be very common from many different causes.

It generally comes from an absence of interest in the point of another

dog, and consequently is more noticed in spring breaking than in autumn

shooting. If dogs are left to themselves in autumn, they will nearly

always back, or run in and take another’s point. The latter is

objectionable, and may cause flushing by either dog, or by both. But it

shows interest in the point, and that is what the breaker has to work

upon. In the spring breaking not infrequently a puppy will go half a

mile round in order to avoid being obliged to see and back a point. That

is because nothing of excitement ever comes of a back before the

shooting season, and in order to make a perfect backer of a dog of this

character (one that is obviously plucky and no fool) he must have his

interest created in the other’s point. This is very easy to accomplish.

One of the chief causes of bad backing is, naturally, false pointing.

Like the man who is always crying “Wolf!” the imaginative dog is not

believed by his fellows, and when pointing dogs are made to back up

false points they perform the operation as an act of unwilling

obedience, and do not assume those attitudes that are so pleasing in the

willing dog. It is therefore quite impossible to have good backing in a

brace of dogs, if one, or both, false point. But there is a way in which

a useless false pointer (and they all are useless) can be made to give a

good lesson in backing and one not easily forgotten, that should not be

often, if at all, repeated. It is a trick on the dog to be educated, and

as such must not be found out, otherwise its virtue will be gone.

The plan is to get a wing-clipped partridge and to fasten to its wing a

leather strap, and to this latter a string of 20 yards length with a peg

at its end, around which the string can be wound. All together can be

put into a cartridge bag, for choice one of waterproofed canvas, because

it is not certain whether, in any other sort, the dog will discover what

is being carried on the shoulder of his trainer, and it is important he

should not discover. Then it is necessary to hunt the prospective backer

with the false pointer. The latter will soon get a point, which the

puppy will ignore or investigate. In either case, wait until the pupil

has done the field and comes back; he will then again see the false

point, and before he gets down wind of it he must be dropped by hand. He

is by this time “cock sure” his companion is pointing nothing; but in

his absence you have unrolled the string from your partridge and put the

peg in the ground at a place up wind of the pointing dog, but down wind

of the spot where you intend to drop the pupil. You have taken the

partridge out of its bag, and, having placed its head under its wing,

you have given it two or three swings round, so as to make it giddy.

Then you have placed it on the ground lying on that wing under which is

its head, and there you have left it. It will lie quite still for a

quarter of an hour, if need be. Having gone back to the peg, which must

be between the partridge and your young dog for obvious reasons, you

give the string a snatch, and up flutters the partridge in full view.

The bird will make a racket when he finds himself caught, and will

flutter a good deal. When you are quite sure your dog will not join in

the chase, you will make as much fuss about catching the bird as

possible. You will not let the puppy see what you do when you return the

bird to the bag, and you will not let the young dog go down wind of the

spot on which the partridge has been fluttering. A clever dog will

detect what has happened if you do either, and will take no interest

afterwards if it should be necessary to repeat the lesson. After this,

go straight home with the dogs in couples, and next day have out for the

young one a better companion, that will not false point. It is twenty to

one that the first point made in the sight of the youngster will be

backed with all the vivacity of a point. In this way you will discover

that _one_ good lesson, properly given with no mistake in it, will do

more than a year’s drudgery in stopping, scolding, and whipping, when

the pupil ought to back.

There are many pointers and setters that will back naturally, but this

trait almost implies that they have not as much capacity for finding

game as the neighbours that they back up in their points. Indeed, the

better the dog is naturally, the greater is the difficulty in persuading

him to a spirit of diffidence. For these very good animals the plan has

been found the most useful by the author, and a triumph of breaking is

to make a perfect backer of a dog so good that he rarely sees a point,

because he finds nine-tenths of the game himself. In order to do it,

there is a necessity for reducing his own estimation of himself, and

luckily this can be done in the manner related without in the smallest

degree reducing the finding powers and ranging energy of the most

superior dogs.