The Dog Part 36

137. I need hardly warn you to be careful not to interrupt him whenever he appears to be winding birds. However good his nose may be by nature, it will not gain experience and discrimination unless you give him a certain time to determine for himself whether he has really touched upon a faint scent of birds, and whether they are in his front or rear, or gone away altogether. Like every other faculty, his sense of smell will improve the more it is exercised. But on the other hand, as I observed before, do not let him continue puzzling with his nose close to the ground,--urge him on,--make him increase his pace,--force him to search elsewhere, and he will gradually elevate his head, and, catching the scent of other particles, will follow up these with a nose borne aloft, unless he is a brute not worth a twentieth part of the pains which you think of bestowing upon him; for,

138. Besides the greatly decreased chance of finding them, birds that to a certainty would become uneasy, and make off if pursued by a dog tracking them, will often lie well to one who finds them by the wind. They are then not aware that they are discovered, and the dog, from the information his nose gives him, can approach them either boldly or with great wariness, according as he perceives them to be more or less shy.

139. If, being unable to catch the dog's eye, you are forced to use the whistle frequently, and he continues inattentive to it, notwithstanding his previous tuition, stand still--make him lie down--by the word "drop,"

if he will not obey your raised left arm--go up to him--take hold of his collar, and rate him, saying, "Bad, bad," cracking your whip over him--let the whip be one that will crack loudly, not for present purposes, but that, when occasion requires, he may hear it at a distance--and whistling softly. This will show him--should you beat him, you would confuse his ideas--that he is chidden for not paying attention to the whistle. Indeed, whenever you have occasion to scold or punish him, make it a constant rule, while you rate him, to repeat many times the word of command, or the signal which he has neglected to obey. There is no other way by which you will make him understand you _quickly_. You must expect that your young dog will for some time make sad mistakes in his range;--but be not discouraged. Doubtless there is no one thing,--I was going to say, that there are no dozen things,--in the whole art of dog-breaking, which are so difficult to attain, or which exact so much labor, as a high, well-confirmed, systematic range. Nature will not a.s.sist you--you must do it all yourself; but in recompense there is nothing so advantageous when it is at length acquired. It will abundantly repay months of persevering exertion. It const.i.tutes the grand criterion of true excellence. Its attainment makes a dog of inferior nose and action far superior to one of much greater natural qualifications, who may be tomfooling about, galloping backwards and forwards, sometimes over identically the same ground, quite uselessly exerting his travelling powers; now and then, indeed, arrested by the suspicion of a haunt, which he is not experienced enough, or sufficiently taught, to turn to good account,--and occasionally brought to a stiff point on birds accidentally found right under his nose.

It is undeniable, _coeteris paribus_, that the dog who hunts his ground most according to rule must in the end find most game.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] In ordinary seasons immediately after St. Valentine's Day--before the birds have made their nests. The first of September is the commencement of partridge shooting in England, as the 26th of Oct. and the 1st of Nov. are generally in America for quail.

All the breaking for partridge in this work, is applicable and must be referred to quail in America. Grouse shooting on the moors in England is applicable to our prairie shooting, and pheasant shooting to our ruffed grouse shooting, when that may be had. The reader must, therefore, transfer the months and seasons accordingly.--H.W.H.

[22] "Leeward"--a nautical phrase--here meaning the side towards which the wind blows _from_ the field. If you entered elsewhere, the dog while ranging would be tempted, from the natural bearing of his nose towards the wind, to come back upon you, making his first turn inwards instead of outwards.

[23] But, independently of these obvious reasons, scent is affected by causes into the nature of which none of us can penetrate. There is a contrariety in it that ever has puzzled, and apparently ever will puzzle, the most observant sportsman--whether a lover of the chase or gun,--and therefore, in ignorance of the doubtless immutable, though to us inexplicable, laws by which it is regulated, we are contented to call it "capricious." Immediately before heavy rain there frequently is none. It is undeniable that moisture will at one time destroy it--at another time bring it. That on certain days--in slight frost, for instance,--setters will recognise it better than pointers, and, on the other hand, that the nose of the latter will prove far superior after a long continuance of dry weather, and this even when the setter has been furnished with abundance of water--which circ.u.mstance pleads in favor of hunting pointers and setters together. The argument against it, is the usual inequality of their pace, and, to the eye of some sportsmen, the want of harmony in their appearance. Should not this uncertainty respecting the recognition of scent teach us not to continue hunting a good dog who is frequently making mistakes, but rather to keep him at "heel" for an hour or two? He will consider it a kind of punishment, and be doubly careful when next enlarged. Moreover, he may be slightly feverish from overwork, or he may have come in contact with some impurity,--in either of which cases his nose would be temporarily out of order.

CHAPTER VII.

FIRST LESSON IN AUTUMN CONTINUED. CAUTION.

140. If it is your fixed determination to confirm your dog in the truly-killing range described in last Chapter, do not a.s.sociate him for months in the field with another dog, however highly broken. It would be far better to devote but two hours per diem to your pupil exclusively, than to hunt him the whole day with a companion.

141. Many breakers do exactly the reverse of this. They take out an old steady ranger, with the intention that he shall lead the young dog, and that the latter, from imitation and habit, shall learn how to quarter his ground. But what he gains by imitation will so little improve his intellects, that, when thrown upon his own resources, he will prove a miserable finder. On a hot, dry day he will not be able to make out a feather, nor on any day to "foot" a delicate scent. I grant that the plan expedites matters, and attains the end which _most_ professional trainers seek; but it will not give a dog self confidence and independence, it will not impart to him an inquiring nose, and make him rely on its sensitiveness to discover game, rather than to his quickness of eye to detect when his friend touches upon a haunt; nor will it instruct him to look from time to time towards the gun for directions. It may teach him a range, but not to hunt where he is ordered; nor will it habituate him to vary the breadth of the parallels on which he works, according as his master may judge it to be a good or bad scenting day.

142. To establish the rare, n.o.ble beat I am recommending,--one not hereafter to be deranged by the temptation, of a furrow in turnips or potatoes,--you must have the philosophy not to hunt your dog in them until he is accustomed in his range to be guided entirely by the wind and your signals, and is in no way influenced by the nature of the ground. Even then it would be better not to beat narrow strips across which it would be impossible for him to make his regular casts. Avoid, too, for some time, if you can, all small fields--which will only contract his range,--and all fields with trenches or furrows, for he will but too naturally follow them instead of paying attention to his true beat. Have you never, in low lands, seen a young dog running down a potato or turnip trench, out of which his master, after much labor, had no sooner extracted him than he dropped into the adjacent one? It is the absence of artificial tracks which makes the range of nearly all dogs _well_ broken on the moors, so much truer than that of dogs hunted on cultivated lands.

143. Moreover, in turnips, potatoes, clover, and the like thick shelter, birds will generally permit a dog to approach so closely, that if he is much accustomed to hunt such places, he will be sure to acquire the evil habit of pressing too near his game when finding on the stubbles--instead of being startled as it were into an instantaneous stop the moment he first winds game,--and thus raise many a bird out of gun-shot that a cautious dog--one who slackens his pace the instant he judges that he is beating a likely spot--would not have alarmed.

144. "A _cautious_ dog!" Can there well be a more flattering epithet?[24]

Such a dog can hardly travel too fast[25] in a tolerably open country, where there is not a superabundance of game, _if_ he really hunt with an inquiring nose;--but to his master what an all-important "if" is this! It marks the difference between the sagacious, wary, patient, yet diligent animal, whose every sense and every faculty is absorbed in his endeavor to make out birds, not for himself but the gun, and the wild harum-scarum who blunders up three-fourths of the birds he finds. No! not _finds_, but frightens,--for he is not aware of their presence until they are on the wing, and seldom points unless he gets some heedless bird right under his nose, when an ignoramus, in admiration of the beauty of the dog's sudden att.i.tude, will often forget the mischief which he has done.

145. Though you cannot improve a dog's nose, you can do what is nearly tantamount to it--you can increase his caution. By watching for the slightest token of his feathering, and then calling out "Toho," or making the signal, you will gradually teach him to look out for the faintest indication of a scent, and _point the instant he winds it_, instead of heedlessly hunting on until he meets a more exciting effluvia. See 174 to 176, and 228.

146. If from a want of animation in his manner you are not able to judge of the moment when he first winds game, and you thus are not able to call out "Toho" until he gets close to birds, quietly pull him back from his point "dead to leeward" for some paces, and there make him resume his point. Perseverance in this plan will ultimately effect your wishes, unless his nose is radically wrong. A dog's pointing too near his game more frequently arises from want of caution--in other words, from want of good instruction--than from a defective nose.

147. Slow dogs readily acquire this caution; but fast dogs cannot be taught it without great labor. You have to show them the necessity of diminishing their pace, that their noses may have fair play. If you have such a pupil to instruct, when you get near birds you have marked down, signal to him to come to "heel" _Whisper_ to him "Care," and let him see by your light, slow tread, your anxiety not to alarm the birds. If he has never shown any symptoms of blinking, you may, a few times, thus spring the birds yourself while you keep him close to you. On the next occasion of marking down birds, or coming to a very likely spot, bring him into "heel," and after an impressive injunction to take "care," give him two or three very limited casts to the right or left, and let _him_ find the birds while you instruct him as described in 228. As there will be no fear of such a dog making false points, take him often to the fields where he has most frequently met birds. The expectation of again coming on them, and the recollection of the lectures he there received, will be likely to make him cautious on entering it. I remember a particular spot in a certain field that early in the season constantly held birds. A young dog I then possessed never approached it afterwards without drawing upon it most carefully, though he had not found there for months. At first I had some difficulty in preventing the "draw" from becoming a "point."

148. I have elsewhere observed that fast dogs, which give most trouble in breaking, usually turn out best: now if you think for a moment you will see the reason plainly. A young dog does not ultimately become first-rate because he is wild and headstrong, and regardless of orders, but because his speed and disobedience arise from his great energies,--from his fondness for the sport, from his longing to inhale the exhilarating scent and pursue the flying game. It is the possession of these qualities that makes him, in his anxious state of excitement, blind to your signals and deaf to your calls. These obviously are qualities that, _under good management_,[26] lead to great excellence and superiority,--that make one dog do the work of two. But they are not qualities sought for by an idle or incompetent breaker.

149. These valuable qualities in the fast dog, must, however, be accompanied with a searching nose. It is not enough that a dog be always apparently hunting, that is to say, always on the gallop--his nose should always be hunting. When this is the case, and you may be pretty certain it is if, as he crosses the breeze, his nose has intuitively a bearing to windward, you need not fear that he will travel too fast, or not repay you ultimately for the great extra trouble caused by his high spirits and ardor for the sport.

150. You have been recommended invariably to enter every field by the leeward side. This you can generally accomplish with ease, if you commence your day's beat to leeward. Should circ.u.mstances oblige you to enter a field on the windward side, make it a rule, as long as your dog continues a youngster, to call him to "heel," and walk down the field with him until you get to the opposite side--the leeward--then hunt him regularly up to windward.

151. I have read wondrous accounts of dogs, who, without giving themselves the trouble of quartering their ground, would walk straight up to the birds if there were any in the field. It has never been my luck, I do not say to have possessed such marvellous animals, but even to have been favored with a sight of them. I therefore am inclined to think, let your means be what they may, that you would find it better not to advertise for creatures undoubtedly most rare, but to act upon the common belief that, as the scent of birds, more or less, impregnates the air, no dog, let his nose be ever so fine, can, except accidentally, wind game unless he seeks for the taint in the air--and that the dog who regularly crosses the wind must have a better chance of finding it than he who only works up wind--and that down wind he can have little other chance than by "roading."

152. It is heedlessness--the exact opposite of this extreme caution--that makes young dogs so often disregard and overrun a slight scent; and since they are more inclined to commit this error from the rivalry of companionship, an additional argument is presented in favor of breaking them separately, and giving them their own time, leisurely and methodically, to work out a scent, _provided the nose be carried high_. I am satisfied most of us hurry young dogs too much.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Provided always he be not perpetually pointing, as occasionally will happen--and is the more likely to happen if he has been injudiciously taught as a puppy to set chickens, and has thereby acquired the evil habit of "standing by eye;" which, however, may have made him a first-rate hand at pointing crows.

[25] With the understanding that the pace does not make him "shut up"

before the day is over.

[26] The more resolute a dog is, the more pains should be taken, before he is shown game, to perfect him in the instant "drop"--25--however far off he may be ranging.

CHAPTER VIII.

FIRST LESSON IN AUTUMN CONTINUED. CUNNING OF AGE. RANGE OF FROM TWO TO SIX DOGS.

153. Of course you will not let your pupil "break fence," or get out of your sight. Be on the watch to whistle or call out "Fence," the instant you perceive that he is thinking of quitting the field. Do not wait until he is out of sight; check him by antic.i.p.ating his intentions. Should he, unperceived, or in defiance of your orders, get into a field before you, call him back--by the same opening, if practicable, through which he pa.s.sed, the more clearly to show him his folly;--and do not proceed further until he has obeyed you. A steady adherence to this rule will soon convince him of the inutility of not exercising more patience, or at least forbearance; then signal to him "away" in the direction _you_ choose, not in the direction _he_ chooses. It is essential that you should be the first over every fence. In the scramble, birds, at which you ought to have a shot, are frequently sprung. If he is not obedient to your orders make him "drop," and rate him as described in 139.

154. A dog from his own observation so much feels,--and in a greater or less degree, according to his education,--the necessity of watching in what direction you are walking, that if he is habituated to work under your eye,--I mean, is never allowed to hunt behind you,--by turning your back upon him when he is paying no attention to your signals, you will often be able to bring him away from a spot where he is ranging--perhaps down wind--against your wishes, at a time when you are afraid to whistle, lest you should alarm the birds. Waving your hand backwards and forwards near the ground, and stooping low while walking slowly about, as if in search of something, will often attract the attention of an ill-taught, self-willed dog; and his anxiety to partic.i.p.ate in the find, and share the sport which he imagines you expect, will frequently induce him to run up, and hunt alongside of you for any close lying bird.

155. Never be induced to hunt your young dog,--nor indeed any dog,--when he is tired. If you do, you will give him a slovenly carriage and habits, and lessen his zeal for the sport. In order to come in for a sniff, at a time when he is too fatigued to search for it himself, he will crawl after his companion, watching for any indication of his finding. As they become wearied you will have a difficulty in keeping even old well-broken dogs separate--much more young ones, however independently they may have ranged when fresh. You may also, to a certainty, expect false points; but what is of far more consequence, by frequently overtasking your dog, you will as effectually waste his const.i.tution as you would your horse's by premature work.

156. If he is very young when first entered, two or three hours' work at a time will be sufficient. When he is tired, or rather before he is tired, send him home with the man who brings you a relief. Do not fancy your dog will be getting a rest if he is allowed to follow at your heels for the remainder of the day, coupled to a companion. His fretting at not being allowed to share in the sport he sees, will take nearly as much out of him as if you permitted him to hunt. If you can persuade John always to rub him down, and brush and dry him--nay even to let him enjoy an hour's basking in front of the fire--before he shuts him up in the kennel, you will add years to his existence; and remember that one old experienced dog, whose const.i.tution is uninjured, is worth two young ones.

157. When you hunt a brace of dogs, to speak theoretically, they should traverse a field in opposite directions, but along parallel lines, and the distance between the lines should be regulated by you according as it is a good or a bad scenting day, and according to the excellence of the dogs'

noses. Mathematical accuracy is, of course, never to be attained, but the closer you approach the better.

158. You should attempt it--on entering the field to _leeward_, as before directed--by making one dog go straight ahead of you to the distance which you wish the parallel lines to be apart from each other, before you cast him off--say--to the right; then cast off his companion to the left. If the dogs are nearly equal in pace, the one ahead, so long as he does not fancy he winds game, should continue to work on a parallel more advanced than the other.

159. Should you not like to relinquish, for the sake of this formal precision, the chance of a find in the neglected right-hand corner of the field, cast off one dog to the right and the other to the left, on entering it, and make the one that soonest approaches his hedge take the widest sweep--turn--and so be placed in the _advanced_, parallel.

160. With regard to hunting more than a brace--when your difficulties wonderfully multiply--your own judgment must determine in what manner to direct their travelling powers to the greatest advantage. Much will depend upon the different speed of the dogs; the number you choose from whim, or otherwise, to hunt; the kind of country you beat; and the quant.i.ty and sort of game you expect to find. It is, however, certain you must wish that each dog be observant of the direction in which your face is turned, in order that he may guide his own movements by yours;--that he from time to time look towards you to see if you have any commands; and that he be ever anxious to obey them.

161. Herbert writes as follows, in his work on shooting in the United States:[27] his words ought to have influence, for manifestly he is a good sportsman; but I own I cannot quite agree with him as to the _facility_ with which a range can be taught: "It is wonderful how easily dogs which are always shot over by the same man--he being one who knows his business--will learn to cross and re-quarter their ground, turning to the slightest whistle, and following the least gesture of the hand. I have seen old dogs turn their heads to catch their master's eye, if they thought the whistle too long deferred; and I lately lost an old Irish setter, which had been stone deaf for his last two seasons, but which I found no more difficulty in turning than any other dog, so accurately did he know when to look for the signal."

162. To beat your ground _systematically_ with three dogs, you should strive to make them cross and recross you each on a different parallel, as just described for two dogs; but each dog must make a proportionally bolder sweep--turn--or,

163. If you have plenty of s.p.a.ce, you can make one dog take a distinct beat to the right, another a separate beat to the left, and direct the third--which ought to be the dog least confirmed in his range--to traverse the central part,--and so be the only one that shall cross and recross you. If one of your dogs is a slow potterer, and you prefer this method to the one named in 162, give him the middle beat, and let his faster companions take the flanks. In our small English fields you have not s.p.a.ce enough, but on our moors, and in many parts of the Continent, it cannot be want of room that will prevent your accomplishing it. To do this well, however, and not interfere with each other's ground, how magnificently must your dogs be broken! In directing their movements, the a.s.sistance that would be given you by each dog's acknowledging his own particular whistle, and no other--275--is very apparent.

164. It is difficult enough to make three dogs traverse across you on tolerably distinct parallels; and at a judicious distance between the parallels you will find it hopeless to attempt it with more than three; and one can hardly imagine a case in which it would be advantageous to uncouple a greater number of good rangers. If, however, the scarcity of game, and the extensiveness of your beat, or any peculiar fancy, induce you habitually to use four dogs, hunt one brace to the right, the other to the left; and, so far as you can, let those which _form a brace be of equal speed_.[28] Your task will be facilitated by your always keeping the same brace to one flank--I mean, by making one brace constantly hunt to your right hand; the other brace to your left. The same reasoning holds with regard to a.s.signing to each dog a particular side when hunting three, according to the mode described in last paragraph. It should, however, be borne in mind, that constantly hunting a dog in this manner on one and the same flank, tends to make him range very disagreeably whenever employed single-handed.

165. If you hunt five dogs, four of them ought to work by braces to the right and left, and the fifth--the dog whose rate of speed most varies from the others--should have a narrow beat a.s.signed him directly in advance of you.

166. If three brace are to be used, let the third brace hunt the central ground, as recommended for the fifth dog--or they could be worked in leashes, one on the right of the gun, the other on the left.