Part 18

Duchess was a light-made black-and-tan, and her dam was by the undoubted black-white-and-tan Gordon for which Lord Chesterfield gave 72 gs. to Tattersall’s at the Duke’s dispersal sale, and her mother was a Marquis of Anglesea bitch. Where did the black-and-tan colour of Duchess come from? The reply is, not from Stella at all, but from Ned (mistakenly entered as Nell) in the pedigree quoted; and he got his colour from Mr. F. Burdett’s Brougham, which there is nothing to show was a Gordon at all, although he was descended from black-and-tans on one side at least. This same Brougham became the ancestor of the most famous breed of English setters—namely, the descendants of Mr. Tom Statter’s Rhœbe, winners of hundreds of field trials in this country and America, and which are still the best setters there are.

But when the breed became crossed with the Lord Rosslyn’s and Kent strains of black-and-tan blood, it practically ceased to be the setter at all in a very few generations. That is why any attempted revival of the black-and-tans ought to be based on dogs the ancestors of which for generations have been good enough to keep for work, and with no ulterior objects. But it would be an up-hill business, for nothing in breeding is more certain than that colour is indicative of blood, and to select for black-and-tans would be to select the wrong type a hundred times in a hundred and one.

On the other hand, if any of the old light-made black-and-tan dogs, with dish faces instead of hound profiles, could be found, the black-and-tan colour is so prepotent that they might have any cross of parti-coloured strain and yet perhaps not show it in the colour in the first generation. Although blackand-tan is a much more prepotent colour than any parti-colour, it is not so much so as the whole colours, black and red. Probably it cannot be produced by breeding these two last-named together. Then facts seem to indicate that the ancestors of our setters were some whole-coloured races or black-and-tan dogs of some wild or domestic kinds.

After grouse have got wild to a team of light-coloured dogs, some shots may often be had over a black-and-tan setter. Possibly the birds mistake the setter for a collie, and the gunner, if suitably dressed in imitation, for the shepherd. There are occasions when, on the contrary, the grouse are more afraid of the sheep-dog than any other, and this may not always mean that the shepherd, like his dog, is a poacher.

It has been said that a black-and-tan is a bad colour to see on the moors, but this is not so. No sportsman would use a black coat for shooting, because it is more conspicuous than any other, and what is true of the man’s coat is true of the dog’s colour.

RETRIEVERS AND THEIR BREAKING

Retrievers are now by far the most popular gun-dogs in this country, whereas in America they are considered useless, with the exception of a few that are kept exclusively for duck shooting, and which are called Chesapeake Bay dogs, and are a distinct breed from any we have in England. Ninety-nine-hundredths of the work of English retrievers is on land, and although a retriever can hardly be called perfect unless he will hunt in water, and get a winged duck if that be possible, yet it is absolutely impossible to have a dog that is perfect in everything (or so it appears), and therefore a shooter exercises a wise moderation in his demands when he insists on perfection in one department rather than moderation in all.

People purchase and use retrievers for either one or more of several reasons:—

1. Because they like a dog.

2. Because they like to collect more game than they shoot.

3. Because they do not like to leave wounded things to die in prolonged pain.

4. Because when they are out of the house they like to have something that they can order about.

5. Because the dead game that can be seen is easy for the dog to retrieve.

6. Because the wounded game that cannot be seen is difficult for men to pick up.

7. Because a handsome retriever gives a finish almost equal to neat spats to a shooter’s turn-out.

8. Because it is much easier to gain credit for sportsmanship at a dog show than in the field and covert.

9. Because there is a demand for stud services at remunerative fees.

In America they do not use retrievers, because they can make all their pointers and setters retrieve, and they must have some of the index dogs or they get no sport, so that they will not keep two dogs to do the work of one.

In England there are three sorts of retrievers, and crosses between each, besides Labradors and spaniels. These three are the flat-coated variety, the curly-coated sort, and the Norfolk retriever, with its open curl or wave of coat. The author believes that the curly-coated show dog is now useless, that the Norfolk dog has gone off in looks, and that the flat-coated retriever is open to regeneration when he is bred more wiry and less lumbering. Besides this, many of the breed are short of courage to face thorns, and slack to hunt also. Gamekeepers say that the highest trial of a retriever’s ability and pluck comes at the pick-up the day after a big shoot. Especially is this so on grouse moors, where no ground game or living creatures of any kind are to be found around the butts, and where probably not a gun is fired during the whole hunt for yesterday’s lost dead. The author has never seen this phase of retriever work; but he believes there are very few dogs that could not get enough of that kind of thing, and that the absence of sport and the search for cold meat might make the best dogs inclined to “look back” for orders. On the other hand, grouse collecting after a drive is just finished is the easiest of all the work the retriever is called upon to perform, for except where there are peat hags or open drains a grouse with a broken wing will not run very far. In one sense retriever work is more difficult than it used to be when game was walked up, for the necessity for remaining quite still until a drive is over, whether the game be grouse, partridges, or pheasants, often gives the wounded a twenty minutes’ start. Consequently, it is likely enough to get clean out of the range of a retriever by the time he is started. It is all very well to say that he should get upon the foot scent and stick to it; so he should, and probably would much oftener than he does, but for the fact that there is around the fall of the wounded in all directions the scent of other dead and wounded birds. What is often asked of a retriever, then, is to neglect the strongest and freshest scents and to try for the weakest and oldest. In order to get this work well done, a retriever should be willing to range wide, outside the radius of the dead birds, so as to find either the body scent of the crouching wounded bird or its foot scent after it had got clear of the floating scent of the many dead which fouls the ground long after the fowls have all been removed from it. But the misfortune is that a high ranging retriever is not always willing to hunt close for dead birds and those that have not moved far. However, this can be taught; whereas there are many fair retrievers for close hunting that could not be taught to hunt wide for a moving “runner,” for the reason that they have not the necessary pluck.

A great deal of difference of opinion exists as to whether a retriever should carry a high or a low head. But there is no doubt that a good dog must do both as occasion requires. Many times has the author seen a high-headed retriever find the fall of a wounded bird 60 yards away, go straight to the place, glue his nose to the line, and never look up until the bird fluttered up in his path. But even this low nose on the foot scent is not invariably desirable, and the same retriever that at one time worms out a line down wind will often run like a foxhound, head up and stern down, when the direction is up wind, or even side wind. The higher the dog carries his head the faster he will go, and consequently the sooner he will come up with his game, so that to insist on retrievers carrying a low nose, even in roding game, is to insist on mediocrity. Every retriever should put his nose down as soon as he has satisfied himself that he cannot do the work with a high head. Of course a retriever cannot find even a fresh-shot bird if a man is standing over it, and as the habit is for shooters and beaters to go and “help” look for lost game, it follows that retrievers learn to put their heads down, for they know that unless they ram their noses nearly into the feathers the scent cannot be detected under such humanising conditions of scent. It is a good plan to pick up by hand all the game that lies near and within sight of where the shooters stood before sending the dogs, and when the dead pick-up is collected, to send the game off down wind of the place to be hunted, so that the scent of it does not mix with the similar scent of some long-gone runner. Then if the ground to be hunted is up wind of where the dead birds were, everything will be in favour of a dog started from that spot; if, on the contrary, it is to leeward of the fall of a lot of game, it is well to go still farther down wind with the retriever, and start him 100 yards or more away from the tainted ground. Then, after trying around for a trace of foot scent, it is easy enough to work back if no indications are found. The object is to get the retriever as quickly as possible on the line of wounded game, without letting him lose time lifting dead ones or hunting for already “picked” birds.

In walking up game one of the most difficult things to learn is to take the far-off bird, and not the easy one, first. By taking the latter with first barrel the former often becomes impossible, and it is just the same with retrievers. If you send them off amongst dead game, they must be allowed to pick it up, although you can see it. A contrary practice is very useful sometimes, and it is easy to teach a retriever to neglect the dead for the wounded _always_; but this “higher education” is extremely awkward in thick cover, like long heather or turnips, where the quite dead birds are most often lost.

A case in point occurs. Mr. A. T. Williams’ Don of Gerwn won the retriever trials very comfortably in 1904, when the author was one of the three judges. There is no doubt that he is very smart on a running bird in covert, or out, and he knows it, and likes the game amazingly. But in 1905 he carried his preferences too far; for once, at least, and probably on several occasions, he found, and made no sign of it when sent for dead birds, but went on hunting for the runner that was not. He had been scolded off dead birds, and thus, on one occasion, he was seen by a spectator to turn over the dead wing of the only bird down and go on hunting, as if his master only wanted his services for the lively runner. As the judges did not see this performance, Don had the discredit of having his eye wiped on very easy birds twice. Probably if they had known all about it, there would have been no other course open to them; for, after all, the “higher education” must stop short at teaching the neglect of retrieving to the retriever.

It is a great but not uncommon mistake to confuse bustle and excitement with courage and love of hunting. No dog should have less excitement or more courage than the retriever. Excitement is so easily recognised that little need be said of it, except that it is probably a near relative of nerves, and a retriever should appear to have no nerves and no excitement. He should be able to stand still, to lie still, or to sit still, in the presence of any quantity of wounded or dead ground game or winged birds. The standing still is the most difficult of the three. At the same time, the more interest a retriever takes in all that is going on the better he is sure to be, provided he is not excitable. Probably no dog takes more interest than a pointer, standing like a statue and dropping as the game rises. He may be excited as he does this, but the majority are not, and a retriever should be no more so. The pointer watches the game go away, but as he does so he sinks to the earth, and the retriever may be just as interested without jumping about or jerking his head in all directions in turn. A good retriever appears to be thinking, and when a dog is noticed to take his gaze off the bird he has been watching at every new arrival, or new fall, of game, he usually has not much stability. He is sure to turn out flighty, and that is a very bad quality—the outcome of excitement. The determination to hunt can exist without any excitement, can grow on what it feeds on, and does not require the assistance of blood to increase it. This is a very important thing to know, because an old idea was that setters and pointers must be allowed to chase game to give them a love of hunting. Some of them may require it; others will increase their love of hunting every time they go out, although they have never been allowed to chase, and in spite of the fact that in the spring no game has ever been killed over them. Some retrievers have had this love of hunting also; but a great many, on the contrary, seem to depend on the excitement they get for the will to hunt. The latter are the most difficult to break, and the least valuable when they are broken.

The qualities that must be hereditary in retrievers are that one just described—soft mouth, and to some extent “nose.” The last-named is not as certainly hereditary as the others, although it is quite as important. The author is not prepared to maintain that an excitable retriever having these last-mentioned qualities is always a bad one, or that excitement cannot be used as a substitute for natural love of hunting in the breaking of a retriever, but this process is intended to restrain excitement, so that the simultaneous encouragement of it makes the task a conflict of intention.

It is said that the business of catching wounded game makes a retriever more apt to run in than a pointer or setter, but the author has had several good retrieving setters that did not run in, so that the difference in breaking is much more likely to arise from temperament than from duties.

It is very easy to make retrievers steady to heel. For this purpose some people keep cut-wing pheasants for them to retrieve, and Belgian hare rabbits for them to look at. The lessons are useful, but whether use does not breed contempt is doubtful. The author would expect a dog trained to retrieve tame pheasants to become careless, and one that constantly saw Belgian hare rabbits to be well behaved until temptation arose. Retrievers that have sense often get very cunning: one the author had did not start to run in until he was five years old, and then he did it deliberately, and _not_ from excitement. The proof was that he would not move unless he saw a hare was hit, then he went instantly, and would take his whipping as if, deserving it, he did not mind.

What do dogs think of us when we restrain them from catching the very things we go out to catch? More proof was forthcoming that it was determination and not excitement that made this old dog run in. When a cord was put on him, he would not move under similar circumstances. He was eventually cured, but it was a tough job, and was not done by cord or whipcord.

Forty years ago the curly-coated dogs were the best workers, and one could make sure of getting good dogs regularly. For instance, about that time the author bought a brace of curly puppies from Mr. Gorse, of Radcliffe-on-Trent, then the most noted exhibitor of show dogs. Both took to work naturally and quickly, and could in their first season be trusted to get runners in turnip-fields of 100 acres each. Ten years later, the author bought one of the late Mr. Shirley’s flat-coated heavy sort, but, although no trouble to break, it was heavy in mind and body. Mr. Shirley entered the own brother of this dog at the field trials at Sleaford; there was no other competitor for the prize. Had there been another entry, it is impossible that Mr. Shirley could have won, for a more lumbering and clumsy performance was never seen, although the task set was only that of picking up a dead bird and not a runner. But Mr. Shirley improved the next generation considerably. He had a very handsome dog to which the author was anxious to raise some puppies. With this object in view, an exchange was made for a defeated bitch called Jenny, then belonging to Mr. Gorse, before mentioned. He took a second prize Birmingham winner of the author’s breeding in exchange. But Mr. Shirley objected to the breeding programme, so that another course had to be adopted, and Jenny raised some first-rate working dogs. Then she was disposed of by the author to the late Mr. Shirley, and by him bred to the dog which had been denied to her when the author’s property. Her name was changed from “Jenny” to “Wisdom,” and she became the founder of the Wiseacre family of show retrievers. She presented them with those long heads physically that some people declare are far from “long” figuratively. Wisdom, or Jenny, herself was certainly a fool, and the origin of her long and narrow refined head was probably what is known as a “sport,” for it was not to be seen on any other retriever of that time. However, she had a good nose and a tender mouth, and is important because probably all the show flat-coated dogs are descended from her.

All the public retriever trials in the field have not been failures like that at Sleaford, previously mentioned. But they have only become popular with show men quite recently. The latter have very wisely concluded that if they could not snuff out the trials that so frequently exhibited handsome dogs in a poor light, the next best thing to be done was to capture them. In order to do this, a very large number of entries have been made, and as the stake is necessarily limited (20 was the number), this had the effect of keeping out most outsiders.

Thus at the 1905 trial there were 39 nominations, only 20 of which were accepted, and these were made up of 15 flat-coated dogs, one Norfolk retriever, two Labrador retrievers, and two brown or liver-coloured dogs, one of which, at least, was not of the dog-show strain in most of his removes.