File:The wild-fowler - a treatise on ancient and modern wild-fowling, historical and practical (1864) (14771216383).jpg

Identifier: wildfowlertreati00folk (find matches)
Title: The wild-fowler : a treatise on ancient and modern wild-fowling, historical and practical
Year: 1864 (1860s)
Authors: Folkard, Henry Coleman
Subjects: Fowling Waterfowl shooting Game and game-birds
Publisher: London (England) : Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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or this sport by many wild-fowlshooters; but, generally speaking-, they are too large; it being oftennecessary to take the dog across a river or bay in a boat, when thewet and dirt they sometimes bring with them, after having been over-board, or running about dykes and marshes, make it very disagree-able to the sportsman or other occupants of the boat. The curly-coated retriever, from the natuie of its skin, is far less dirty; and,when carefully trained to the sport, is the best breed of dog that canbe had for the purpose. It is not desirable that the dog should be very large, particularly ifin the locality of muddy savannas; because the lighter the weight ofthe animal, the quicker and more readily will he be enabled to walkover the rotten surface in pursuit of winged or wounded birds. The dog intended to be trained for wild-fowl shooting, should com-mence a course of instruction when about ten months of age j andthe first thing to be taug-ht is—to fetch and carry; and, in imparting
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^ THE WILD-FOWL SHOOTERS DOG. 105 this instruction, kindness and patience are the best preceptors, andwill be found to do more in the way of bringing the dog* under controlthan blows. The spike-collar, recommended by some professed dog-breakers, should not, on any accoimt, be used : it inflicts unnecessarytorture; and, as Col. Hutchinson very properly remarks in his excellentlittle book on dog-breaking-, it is a bnital instrument which nonebut the most ignorant or unthinking would employ. The wild-fowlers retriever must be trained to fetch from the waterin the summer time: it would spoil the animals courage to attempttraining it to the pursuit in winter. But, after a course of careful andjudicious instruction, a well-bred and high-couraged dog never refusesthe water, though ever so cold. Retrieving by land may be taughtat any season, with the aid of a stuifed glove at first, and afterwardsa stuffed bird-skin; but in no instance should hard substances beemployed in the education of a r

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