Dogs' Noses
The power of scent varies much with different dogs: usually a slow dog makes better use of its scenting nerves than the fast galloper. It is pretty to watch a good retriever following a wounded bird over ground alive with unwounded game, yet never turning aside from the one trail. A dog could hardly distinguish one partridge from another—probably it is by the scent of blood that the one line can be followed so accurately. Sportsmen do not always give the dogs fair chances; they throw them cheese at lunch-time, or perhaps allow bagged game or themselves to taint the wind, so foiling other trails. In one case a sportsman blamed a new retriever for not finding a bird which was actually lying beneath his own boots. And even a first-rate retriever will sometimes tread on the very bird he is seeking, without finding it.
