CHAPTER XI.
FIRST LESSON IN AUTUMN CONCLUDED. BAR. LEG STRAP. SPIKE COLLAR.
[202]. After a few trials you will, I hope, be able to dispense with the peg recommended in [194], and soon after with the checkcord also. But if your dog possesses unusually high spirits, or if he travels over the ground at a pace which obviously precludes his making a proper use of his nose, it may be advisable to fasten to his collar a bar, something like a diminutive splinter-bar, that it may, by occasional knocking against his shins, feelingly admonish him to lessen his stride. If he gets it between his legs and thus finds it no annoyance, attach it to both sides of his collar from points near the extremities. One of his forelegs might occasionally be passed through the collar; but this plan is not so good as the other; nor as the strap on the hind leg—[56]. These means—to be discarded, however, as soon as obedience is established—are far better than the temporary ascendancy which some breakers establish by low diet and excessive work, which would only weaken his spirits and his bodily powers, without eradicating his self will, or improving his intellect. You want to force him, when he is in the highest health and vigor, to learn by experience the advantage of letting his nose dwell longer on a feeble scent.
[203]. I have made no mention of the spiked collar, because it is a brutal instrument, which none but the most ignorant or unthinking would employ. It is a leather collar, into which nails, much longer than the thickness of the collar, have been driven, with their points projecting inwards. The French spike-collar is nearly as severe. It is formed of a series of wooden balls,—larger than marbles,—linked—about two and a half inches apart—into a chain by stiff wires bent into the form of hooks. These sharp pointed hooks punish cruelly when the checkcord is jerked.
[204]. We have, however, a more modern description of collar, which is far less inhuman than either of those I have mentioned, but still I cannot recommend its adoption, unless in extreme cases; for though not so severely, it, likewise, punishes the unfortunate dog, more or less, by the strain of the checkcord he drags along the ground: and it ought to be the great object of a good breaker as little as is possible to fret or worry his pupil, that all his ideas may be engaged in an anxious wish to wind birds. On a leather strap, which has a ring at one end, four wooden balls—of about two inches in diameter—are threaded like beads, at intervals from each other and the ring, say, of two inches—the exact distance being dependent on the size of the dog's throat. Into each of the balls sundry short pieces of thickish wire are driven, leaving about one-sixth of an inch beyond the surface. The other end of the strap—to which the checkcord is attached—is passed through the ring. This ring being of somewhat less diameter than the balls, it is clear, however severely the breaker may pull, he cannot compress the dog's throat beyond a certain point. The effect of the short spikes is rather to crumple than penetrate the skin.
[205]. I have long been sensible of the aid a spiked collar would afford in reclaiming headstrong, badly educated dogs, if it could be used at the moment—and only at the precise moment when punishment was required,—but not until lately did it strike me how the collar could be carried so that the attached cord should not constantly bear upon it, and thereby worry, if not pain the dog. And had I again to deal with an old offender, who incorrigibly crept in after pointing, or obstinately "rushed into dead," I should feel much disposed to employ a slightly spiked collar in the following manner.
[206]. That the mere carrying the collar might not annoy the dog, I would extract or flatten the nails fixed on the top of the collar, on the part, I mean, that would lie on the animal's neck. This collar I would place on his neck, in front of his common light collar. I would then firmly fasten the checkcord, in the usual way, to the spiked collar; but, to prevent any annoyance from dragging the checkcord, at about five or six inches from the fastening just made I would attach it to the common collar, with very slight twine—twine so slight that, although it would not give way to the usual drag of the checkcord, however long, yet it would readily break on my having to pull strongly against the wilful rush of an obstinate dog, when, of course, the spikes would punish him, as the strain would then be borne by the spiked collar alone.
[207]. Guided by circumstances, I would afterwards either remove the spiked collar, or, if I conceived another bout necessary, refasten the checkcord to the common collar with some of the thin twine, leaving, as before, five or six inches of the checkcord loose between the two collars.
[208]. If you should ever consider yourself forced to employ a spiked collar, do not thoughtlessly imagine that the same collar will suit all dogs. The spikes for a thin coated pointer ought to be shorter than for a coarse haired setter! You can easily construct one to punish with any degree of severity you please. Take a common leather collar; lay its inner surface flat on a soft deal board: through the leather drive with a hammer any number of tacks or flat-headed nails: then get a cobbler to sew on another strap of leather at the back of the nails, so as to retain them firmly in position.