“MODERN BREAKING Dae - Book _ About © 435i p88 Cornell University Library SF 431.B88 hii \ Cornell University << The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924001175789 LIFE AND EXPRESSION MODERN BREAKING A TREATISE ON THE REARING, BREAKING AND HanpDLING OF SETTERS AND POINTERS Embodying the Methods Embployed by the Most Successful Breakers and Field Trial ‘Handlers of the Day. ILLUSTRATED. THE BLAKELY PRINTING COMPANY CHICAGO, ILL. 1906 Entered According to Act of Congress in the Year 1906 by WILLIAM A. BRUETTE In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. THE ILLUSTRALIONS IN TIS Book are from paintings by Pror. E. H. OstHaus OF TOLEDO, OHIO. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.—Training an art; knowledge of self; skill required to handle a dog; ruined. dogs; incompetent owners ; professional breakers. CHAPTER II. SETTERS AND POINTERS.—The merits of each and their par- ticular sphere of usefulness. CHAPTER III. SELECTING A Pupry.—Pedigrees and their value; rearing: kenneling ; feeding; diseases of puppyhood; prevention of gunshyness. CHAPTER IV. NAMING Docs.—Short names the best; compound names a nuisance; originality desirable. ¥s NOMENCLATURE.—Breaking and field trial terms; obsolete words; pointing; flushing; backing; drawing; roading; pottering; blinking; stanch; ranging; quartering: snappy, merry style; bird sense cramped; loosening up; class; mutt. CHAPTER VI. TRAINING IMPLEMENTS.—Whip; whistle; check cord; lead; spike collar. CHAPTER VII. Know TuyseLy.—Breaking the breaker; pronounced in- stinets not intelligence; mistakes of amateurs; study- ing the young dog. CHAPTER VIII. First Lessons.—Introduction to game; developing cour- age; encouraging fondness for field work. CHAPTER IX. YARD BRrEAKING.—The old lesson of to-ho; stopping to order ; Stopping to uplifted hand. CHAPTER XN. Porntina INstInct.—The machinery of the point instinct versus intelligence; steadying the young dog; dropping to wing. CHAPTER NI. YarD Breakine.—Dropping to order, shot and wing; walk- ing to heel. CHAPTER XII. Backinc.—A form of the pointing instinct; bad manners; rushing in; independence of character. CHAPTER XIII. RANGING.—Quartering; field trial methods; coveys and sin- gle birds ; grouse and woodcock dogs; turning out. CHAPTER XIV. RETRIEVING.—Natural and force system; dangers of the spike collar; a new method. CHAPTER XV. GUNSHYNESS.—Overcoming fear of the gun. CHAPTER XVI. Bap BREAKING—FAULTS AND Vices.—The trailing dog; bark- ing at horses; rabbit chasing; egg sucking; sheep chasing; howling; muddy paws. CHAPTER XVII. CONDITIONING.—Racehorse methods; feeding; exercise; the thermometer; massage; plethora; sore feet; lameness; clipping. CHAPTER XVIII. Don’ts. CHAPTER I, InTRopucTion.—Training an art; knowledge of self; skill required to handle a dog; ruined dogs; incompetent owners; professional breakers, NE of the first things the amateur should learn is that the breaking of setters and pointers for field use is not so much of a science as it is an art. To know all the conven- tional methods of accomplishing certain results in dog breaking is one thing, but even with this knowledge stored in his head, the breaker has much to learn if he would avoid failure. He must learn the why and the wherefore of the technique of dog breaking, and he must know considerable about the psychological side of the setter and pointer to make a good application of the conventional methods of dog breaking. Nor is this all. More important than mere technical knowledge of the science of breaking, and the peculiarities of setter or pointer dispo- sition, is the knowledge of self. To every ama- teur and many professionals this knowledge of self must seem the simplest part of the art of dog breaking to acquire, and yet it will bear repetition—it is the most difficult. The human Io Modern Breaking ego is large—very large and extremely sensi- tive—and to tell a man he has not sense enough to break a dog after he has been told how would seriously offend him. But it is neverthe- ‘ less true that a man who has done little break- ing does not know how to do it, even if he has all the rules by heart. The difficulty is he does not understand himself as he thinks he does. He will do things he may have determined not to do, and he will omit to do things he had determined upon doing. Then he will do things in a different manner from what he should do them. Again, there are nerves and notions in a man’s make-up that never find expression until he tries his hand at breaking a high-strung setter or pointer. In short, the man who starts out to break a setter or pointer with the idea that he knows himself will be fooled, and the dog, if not entirely spoiled, will fall short of that degree of excellence he might have reached in the hands of a man who had taken the precaution to understand himself be- fore he began the task of educating his dog. The amateur who becomes reasonably expert in breaking his own dog has accomplished more than the saving of the one hundred dollars he would have: paid a trainer. He will have suc- ceeded in educating himself as well as his dog, so that he knows himself better than he did before and will have secured a control over his Modern Breaking II temper that will be of value to him in all his - business and social affairs. The bunches of nerves which all men possess that go off, as it _ were, at times, upon slight provocation will be under better control, and his stock of patience - and spirit of forbearance will have undergone a development that will enable him to view former worries with urbanity. There is an increased pleasure in shooting over a dog of your own development and break- ing, and in addition the man who has had some insight into the psychological side of a dog’s nature has in handling even a well-broken dog an immense advantage over the man who looks at a dog simply as a machine, without knowing anything of the art of breaking. We have all heard the wail of the man de- frauded in buying a dog represented as broken which was worse than unbroken, or of the man who had sent a dog to a breaker, paid the fee and had his dog ruined or returned wilder than when he sent him away. The dog, when he left his hands, went directly into the hands of his master, who, unfamiliar with the methods of dog breaking and unqualified to systematic- ally go to work with the animal, so as to keep him up to all that he knew, was unable to control him and allowed him to display bad tricks or traits of character or develop new ones. If sportsmen would go to the trouble of 12 Modern Breaking seeing their dogs hunted for a day or two by the breaker, and carefully observe his peculiar modes of speech and action with these dogs, it would serve as a guide to their own conduct toward their dogs in insisting upon their living up to their breaking. To be sure there are dis- honest breakers, just as there are dishonest merchants, ministers and .doctors, but the pro- fessional handlers of to-day—and there are numbers of them—are as reliable as the mem- bers of any profession. Their statements can be accepted. If a dog which appears wild and unbroken is received from a breaker of reputa- tion, the sportsman should not jump at the con- clusion that he has been defrauded. The dog should be given an opportunity to get acquainted with his new master, and the owner should study himself. Perhaps he does not know how to handle a dog. This will be a difficult thing for him to confess, and besides, having paid his ‘money for a broken dog, he is likely to expect too much.