The Complete English Wing Shot

by George Teasdale Teasdale-Buckell

MR. A. T. WILLIAMS AND HIS CELEBRATED LIVER-COLOURED FIELD TRIAL RETRIEVER DON OF GERWN

MR. A. T. WILLIAMS’ DON OF GERWN (LIVER-COLOURED)

MR. LEWIS WIGAN’S SWEEP OF GLENDARUEL (BLACK)

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.