The records of bench show wins by no means take the place of photographs, for the variation of victorious types is as great as that of the selection of judges. This was always so, but of late years dogs have been bred for show without regard to their business in life; so that many exhibition pointers are only nominally of that breed, and instead of shows assisting pointer breeders they are so managed as to preclude competition by field trial dogs. This might be altered by the adoption by the Stud Book, or a new one, of the principles upon which the Foxhound Stud Book is managed by the Masters of Foxhounds Association. That is, by only admitting hounds bred from sire and dam entered in a recognised pack. The same principle would be satisfactorily adopted if only dogs bred from field trial winning parents, or winners themselves, were admitted to the Stud Book, or to pointer classes at shows, when both the book and the exhibition would become of real use. A similar principle is involved at the King’s Premium Show of thorough-bred horses, where the performances on the Turf of the competitors are placed before the judges; and in 1906 the latter have recommended that they should be allowed to consider pedigrees also in making their awards.
Formation, which indicates power to work, is of as much importance in a well-bred dog as pedigree, which should indicate will to work. But in a badly bred dog formation is of no importance, but, by the Kennel Club management of dog shows and Stud Book, formation is treated as of the first importance, and true working blood as of no importance whatever. The author ventures to predict an alteration, or, failing that, a time when all the owners of sporting dogs of all kinds will ignore the Kennel Club as completely as the Masters of Hounds Association and the Governing Body of Coursing always have.
Mr. B. J. Warwick, who has Compton Pride, a liver-and-white pointer with the distinction of winning the Champion Field Trial Stake at Shrewsbury twice, is a member of the Kennel Club, and Mr. Sidney Turner, its Chairman, has proposed at meeting only to give championship Kennel Club certificates to field trial winners; but the sporting influence is weak in the Club, and nothing has come of the Chairman’s proposition, which by itself would not go half far enough to redeem the sporting character of the Kennel Club, or to put under ground all show dogs that are nominally sporting but cannot work. Nothing less drastic will be of the smallest use in improving the shows for the true working breeds. The author is speaking only of pointers and setters here, of which breeds large numbers could qualify. The same treatment for spaniels and retrievers would naturally be deferred until field trials for those breeds had produced more winners and more dogs bred from winners in the field.
The following contrast will assist in showing the care necessary in the choice of blood; for no breed differs more between its individuals than the pointers.
About 1865 the writer had a small black-and-white dog of the race, which was nearly the first dog he broke. But he was almost ashamed to say that he did break it; for, with the exception of holding up a hand occasionally, there was nothing to be done, and yet this dog had all the desire to quest for game that could be wished. It taught itself to point, to range, to back, and almost to drop to wing, and never desired to chase a hare. Shortly before this, being then very young, the author became impressed with the necessity of possessing more pointers, and by means of advertisement procured a bitch to breed from. She had a pedigree of enormous proportions and pretence, but a list of names has no meaning unless attached to those names are records of the performances of the animals that once possessed them. However, not everybody was aware of that at a period, unlike the present, when a pointer generally meant a dog kept to shoot over, and the purchase looked like a pointer—at any rate, it was liver-and-white. She bred four puppies, which were very foolishly exhibited at the Birmingham Show. More foolish still it was to give them a run behind a horse. They looked like following, and if they would not, the author believed he could follow them. They soon put him to the test, for they went straight away in a pack after nothing whatever, until they came to a field in which sheep were penned on turnips. Then they all together went for the sheep, and for the first time divided. It is all very well to be huntsman, but difficult to double the parts and be whipper-in as well, especially when the pack divides. Besides, one hunting thong does not go far in tying up four dogs to hurdles; more especially when they bite the thong in two while another is being ridden down. There was much cry and not a little wool; but although they went for the throats, they were attacking Lincoln or Leicester sheep, and the long wool helped to save some of the mutton. These dogs had no natural quest, although they were wild for a race and for blood. Had they had collars on when they went for the sheep, each could have been rendered harmless upon being caught by having one fore foot slipped through the collar, but the author did not learn the trick until many years later.
ENGLISH SETTERS
For reasons that it is difficult to fully explain, English setters have been subjected to more fluctuations in merit than any other breed. The last decadence undoubtedly set in when the show and field trial sorts first became distinct breeds. The show dogs lost the assurance of constitution which work in the field guarantees, and the field trial dogs lost the breeder’s care for external form, which as show dogs their ancestors had received. Moreover, they had no equivalent in England in the form of stamina tests at field trials, and the principal breeders have so many dogs that stamina is of little importance in practice to them, however necessary it is to the maintenance of the vitality of a race of thoroughbreds.
There is evidence of black-white-and-tan setters in a Flemish picture of A. Dürer, but in England the earliest clear evidence makes the English setter of 1726, or thereabouts, either red-and-white or black-and-tan. From the breeding together of these two colours may now be produced whole-coloured red and whole-coloured black, black-and-white, and black-white-and-tan dogs, and possibly also their various mixtures, such as “ticked” dogs of either colour, but this is doubtful. There have been several strains of liver-and-white setters, quite pure bred as far as anyone knew, but bearing traces of water spaniel character, so that it is probable they were originated by this cross at some remote period. Probably it is possible to originate liver-and-white by crossing black-and-white on lemon-and-white; but if that is so, this is an original mixture of colouring that is exceedingly unusual, provided there is no reversion to a liver-and-white ancestor. It is unusual for this blend to occur, because a race of setters has been bred for many years in which more than 99 per cent. of the offspring came one of three colours—namely, black-and-white ticked, lemon-and-white ticked, and black-white-and-tan with very few ticks and large patches of colour. The other two colours that have shown themselves, each less than 1 per cent., have been red and white in large patches—a combination of the markings of one, and the colour of another, ancestral race—and liver-and-white. But it is possible that these two rare kinds are not blends at all, but only reversions to ancestors more than thirty-five years and ten or twelve generations back. Paper pedigrees can trace the colours and the absence of red markings back much farther than this, but the author is only now discussing what he personally remembers. Probably these are not reversions at all, but merely blends of colour and markings. It would possibly be more nearly correct to say that the liver-and-white appears in the race referred to no more often than once in a thousand puppies. If it is a reversion, it shows how very nearly a cross may be bred out; and if it is a blend, it proves that whatever generation of these black-and-white and lemon-and-white setters are crossed together the offspring continues to come of the three original strains of blood, with little mixture, and very seldom a thorough mixture.
All the best English setters in the world are descended from Mr. Hackett’s Rake, a descendant of Mr. Burdett’s black-and-tan Brougham. Rake begat Mr. Staffer’s Rhœbe, and also Judy, the dam of the Champion Field Trial dog Ranger. These two, Rhœbe and Ranger, founded two distinct families, which for a very long time were not mixed, and in America are still separate, and the former remains uncrossed with American blood. The Ranger blood was principally kept up by Mr. James Bishop of Wellington, Salop, and by Mr. Elias Bishop also.