It is said to be a good way to show a retriever heaps of game running
about while he is at heel. No doubt this is true, but not before he has
learnt to retrieve running game. To make a retriever steady before he
wants to be wild is easy enough; but it is not teaching self-control,
and is educating the dog to _ignore_ game just as he should sheep.
Consequently, it is best, as soon as the young dog is perfectly hand
broken, at six or eight months old, to give him some line hunting after
living game. This will increase his fondness of hunting, and give him an
inclination to go for all the game he sees, so that he will gain
self-control with every head of game he does not chase.
The author used to believe that a drag was good exercise in line
hunting: it may serve to start a puppy, but he will hunt the man and not
the dead game. There are objections to most methods of teaching rode
hunting, but the author’s plan serves at least three useful purposes.
First of all, and most important is the use of a bird that is not easily
bitten or hurt, so that no damage is done to the dog’s mouth, or to the
tame and wing-cut wild duck, for this is the bird used. The duck is
taken away from its pond, and turned down in a meadow, when it will head
towards its home, creeping as much out of sight as possible. In the
grass it will prove very easy to rode up to, and that is wanted for a
young dog. Later it can be made quite difficult enough over fallow, or
anywhere, by giving lots of law. Then in a shallow pond the duck is an
education to the water-dog. Almost every dog will take water provided he
can touch bottom and there be a match for a duck, but many dogs object
to swimming. Nevertheless, if there is only one small spot in the pond
which the retriever cannot wade, the duck will find this out very
quickly, and will, by degrees, tempt in the dog out of his depth. He
will soon learn to dive after the duck, too, and in fact become a
first-rate water-dog without having a shot fired over him.
The duck let off in a turnip-field will be a great lesson, for at first
turnip leaves and the innumerable small birds and other creatures in
turnips, especially rabbits and thrushes before the shooting season,
bother a youngster even more than the absence of much scent of the game
to be retrieved.
After this course the puppy will be quite ready to take the field, and
will probably get the first running partridge or grouse he is sent
after, and do it as quickly and well as an old dog.
The author never made his retrievers drop to shot, but no doubt it
steadies the nervous and keeps down excitement to do it. If it is
approved, the hand-breaking time is best for its teaching, and it should
become habit, as if instinctive. Then, in the field, it can gradually be
forgotten; but long after a dog ceases to drop to shot he will retain an
impulse to do so, and as this will be an exactly contrary impulse to
that of running in, it will save many a whipping. However, a dog is not
broken if he is only safe when lying down; for it is really putting him
out of temptation.
[Illustration:
THE HON. A. HOLLAND HIBBERT’S KENNEL OF LABRADOR RETRIEVERS, 1901
]