Most people have to buy their dogs for the moors, or to hire them.
During June and July large numbers are annually sent up to Aldridge’s,
in St. Martin’s Lane. There are a very few general rules which may save
a buyer from disappointment.
In nearly all cases the vendors offer to show dogs on game before the
sales. It is obviously the best way to go, or send, and have them viewed
upon game. The first question always to be asked about young dogs is
whether they are gun-shy, and in a trial when no game is being shot it
is wise to use the gun, but not fair to use it over much. A dog that has
been used to having a shot or two fired over it during an hour’s
breaking is not necessarily ready to undergo the bewildering experience
of a dozen discharges in close proximity and in quick succession when no
intention is obvious. Even on the moors, on the 12th of August, the use
of the gun should be tempered with discretion, whether the puppies are
inclined to be nervous or not. Besides, this is obvious wisdom from
another point of view. Your puppy will do as much work as an equally
well-made old dog if you “nurse” him; but if, on the contrary, you allow
him to run himself out at the first start, he will soon do it, and will
not “come” again that day.
Probably the best way is to make a rule, for the few early days, always
to take every puppy up after the first find and killing of grouse. Allow
him to point dead and make a fuss over the birds killed, but then have
him led away 300 yards behind the firing line, where every shot heard
will add to his anxiety to make more acquaintance with the gun, provided
your dog-boy knows how not to be severe. In an hour, probably, the young
dog will be made for life by this treatment; but, as one can never tell,
it is safest to proceed thus for a few days, and meantime the puppy may
have fresh short runs at intervals of an hour or two. This refers to
highly broken puppies, and not to the wild, sport-spoiling sort. The
former are never so good as when they have the keen edge on; the latter
are never worse than with it on. Such dogs are too wild to be of use all
the morning, and too tired all the afternoon, so that the points one has
to make sure of in purchasing pointers and setters are—
Absence of gun-shyness.
Steady pointing.
Freedom from chase.
Dropping to wing, gun, and hand.
A fair amount of ability to go, with a prospect of staying when in
working condition.
A good nose.
Answering to whistle.
With these qualities good sport will be assured, although the most
particular will require in addition good backing. It is the quality most
often absent in good puppies, and luckily can most easily be dispensed
with. There are hundreds of shooters over dogs who never saw good
backing, as most people are satisfied when the dog behind takes up an
attitude of steadiness, and they do not ask unpleasant questions as to
its nature. In practice a double point is often as good as a back, and
it is not difficult to understand how some people may get to prefer that
the dog behind is on the spot. For one thing, he is then safe from doing
undetected damage, and is ready to assist in roding out close-lying
birds as soon as his companion needs help.
Between this and the most striking field trial backing there is a happy
middle course, which used to be considered the most perfect, and is so
now, but it would be unfair to expect it when strange dogs meet each
other at field trials. It consists in a perfect sympathy with the
pointing dog, so that the animal which has not got the scent feels it
through the “thought reading” of his companion. One cannot suppose there
is conscious imitation of movement, yet so perfect has occasionally been
the imitation of the movements of the advance dog by the one behind,
that, step for step, stop for stop, crouch for crouch, and drop for
drop, the one has copied the every action of the other, as if the
pointing dog’s nervous system was affecting the muscles of both inch by
inch. Not only has this been so, but the hesitation of a lifted fore leg
has been reflected by the image behind. This kind of thing generally
arises from two dogs being constantly used together, being particularly
equal, and also being frequently tired in their work, so as to make it
habitual for one to be glad when the other has found game. At field
trials, if the competing dog is not sorry to see a competitor’s point,
his master probably is (it may mean £100), and the feelings of the man
are apt to be reflected in the dog.
By “nursing” a team of dogs in the way mentioned above, it is wonderful
how few will keep a pair of guns going day after day. If dogs are run to
a standstill one day, they will want a day’s rest the next, and the
fewer dogs a shooter can get through the grouse season with, the better
and more experienced each canine servant becomes. Consequently, economy
and excellence go hand in hand.
The better to further both designs, the buyer should have some regard
for make and shape, and a minor regard for size. The dog-show ideals
will not assist much. The principal wants of a working dog, to enable
him to go on long, and day after day, are good shoulders. The nearer the
tops are together the better—indeed, in imitation of the shape of a good
hunter’s withers (that is, narrowing as they approach the top of the
back). Powerful muscles in the hind legs, especially in the second
thighs, big hocks set low down and well bent stifle joints, but not
necessarily well bent hock joints, are all essentials, but only in
proportion to the weight to be moved. Big fore legs below the knee and
loins the same width from end to end—that is, with no dip horizontally
or vertically in the middle—is part of the formation essential to
stamina. But, after all, the only point wanted is proportion. With true
balance the lighter a dog weighs the better, and yet the bigger he is
the better too. This is only saying that the lighter and stronger he is
for his size the better.
If it is impossible to see dogs out before auction days arrive, the
safest way is to pick out some owner who sells with a good description,
and who is good for powder and shot in the event of a mistake being
made. Then the buyer has what amounts to a guarantee, and one that has
often been acted upon. But unless the purchase is of well seasoned dogs,
that have been the chief helps to some well-known sportsmen, it is
always safest to go exclusively for field trial blood.
The chances are that young dogs of this blood will be far better than
their owners know, and will come on in a surprising manner after a
little shooting over, whereas coarse-bred dogs, that have been shot over
a season, will be going back, and in most cases will have probably
learnt some bad habits.
Nobody can decide for another how many dogs will do. The men differ even
more than the dogs. Alternate instead of consecutive days on the moors
will mean half the dogs necessary for every day upon the “hull.” In the
same way the number may be decreased again by half if the shooting does
not start until noon, and a long hour is taken for lunch, and the
shooter is back at the lodge by 6 p.m.
Other men will begin shooting at 9 a.m., and will stop work at 6.30 or 7
p.m., which more than doubles the hours. Then the dogs will differ. The
average perhaps will not now do more than two hours’ fast work during
the day. Nothing is much more distressing in sport than a tired man
trusting to a weary dog. That kind of thing is not what one pays big
grouse rents for, and nothing less than fast work is likely to satisfy
in these days.
No shooter of economic mind in regard to canine assistance does well to
permit couples to be used on shooting days. They take half a day’s work
out of some dogs, and a good deal out of all. Pointers and setters ought
to be taught to walk at heel without couples, and are all the better for
being sent in a cart to the fixture. Every ounce of energy should be
conserved, as with a Derby horse. If dogs are really broken, they cannot
be too fresh. Sometimes they are more fond of galloping than finding
game, and then the best thing to do is still to start them fresh, but to
run them until they are tired. This soon makes them glad of an excuse to
find game. On the other hand, some are too fond of pointing, and will
follow up any faint scent, leaving ground and birds right and left
behind them, because they are too lazy to quarter. They are not nice
dogs, but they are best worked very fresh and only for short spurts.
The author has often been asked what is the best way to treat a dog that
false points and draws right into the wind as if he had found game, when
he only thinks he may have done so. Probably the best way is to walk
past him with a good retriever at heel, one on which reliance can be
placed to show whether there is game in front or not. This saves you
from the necessity of recognising a false point, either by drawing on
the dog or calling him off. In either case your notice would do harm,
whereas if you take not the smallest notice of such points the dog will
soon learn to rely upon himself, if he has any courage at all.
There is, of course, a great demand for field trial breakers. Good men
of this sort always get good posts, but sportsmen who have keepers whom
they would like to see better handlers of dogs of any kind, would
generally gain their ends by sending their men first to look on at field
trials, then buying some six-weeks-old puppies of a good sort, in order
to let their breakers compete occasionally at these events. It teaches
keepers to view dogs in quite a different way, and they cost no more to
keep as highly broken than as slovenly unbroken animals.