3-053-689 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Breaking in pointers and setters, 1873. Field-training of hunting dogs. 'They are to mind what is said to them, be it the word "Heel!" or "Down!" or "Hold up!" and we can only say that, if they do all this, we know very few children of the human race half so well taught. When so far morally instructed, they are to be taken a daily walk in the fields, and sometimes to hear the noise of a gun or pistol...In the process of training,...the puppy or young one is accompanied by an old and experienced dog. The young one may recklessly put up the birds he finds, and chase the game without any notion of standing and pointing; but this is a fault to be forgiven while he learns to range or hunt. This lesson requires great nicety of adaptation to the ground, and to the direction from which the wind conveys the "body-scent," so as to avoid driving all the birds too soon off the allotted beat, and to avoid puzzling the dog with useless movements...After the instruction of pointers and setters in beating their ground, they have to learn how to point, or to set, or to stand; how to back another dog when he is standing, and, in some cases, how to retrieve or fetch the game'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.