The Complete English Wing Shot

by George Teasdale Teasdale-Buckell

COL. C. J. COTES’ PITCHFORD MARSHAL. SEVERAL TIMES A FIELD TRIAL WINNER

COL. C. J. COTES’ MONK. AN INTERMEDIATE LINK BETWEEN THE IMPORTED DOG TIP, OF 1832, AND MARSHAL. NOW IN FULL VIGOUR. MONK IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN VERY FAST

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.