It may be urged that the use of a live pigeon as an object of instruction is a piece of unnecessary cruelty; but this need not be so. In the first place, before any puppy is set this task, the breaker must be convinced that he is absolutely tender-mouthed, and if he makes any attempt to bite or otherwise injure the bird, he must be set back, and made to carry hedgehog skins and other inanimate objects that will work mechanical retaliation if he gives his jaws and teeth too much play. Nor must he again tackle a live bird until he can carry a hen's egg without breaking it.

All this requires patience; but the man who is not blessed with patience must never expect to excel as a dog-breaker.

Your puppy, being well grounded and approaching maturity, can now be entered to game that is actually shot. The writer has generally made a commencement with pigeons from a trap. When you can walk up to the mark, and "down" a double-rise, whilst your Retriever drops to your feet at the fall of the traps and rise, and does not offer to stir until he receives the word of command, but subsequently brings both birds tenderly to hand; then he has only that to learn which a naturally keen nose and practical experience with a variety of game can give him. And here we must take leave of him, for the rest is entirely a matter of detail, which can only be dealt with by the study of the individuality of each dog, the fostering of all that is good, and the firm correction of all that is bad and wilful.

Sometimes it happens that everything that can be done in the shape of kindly persuasion is of no avail, and a dog is so obstinate and so headstrong that severe measures have to be resorted to. We all know the old proverb, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," though many of us have protested loudly against its exemplification when levelled against our own youthful persons; but as some children are spoilt by corporal punishment, the moral welfare of others thrive thereon; so it is with the Retriever. All that we can say is, do not thrash your dog until all other methods have failed; but on the principle of "a stitch in time saves nine," when you do administer the whip, lay it on with a will, so that the memory of the infliction becomes an abiding and restraining terror. Some Retrievers are so high-spirited and headstrong that they deliberately risk a "hiding," rather than forego the joy of running in and chasing fur. If such a dog persistently elects "to do his bit, and take his hit," it may even be necessary to see how he likes a charge of No. 8 shot at sixty yards! This is a last resource, and should only be practised as such: but it is marvellously successful in most cases, though always attended with more or less danger.

Another somewhat questionable method of steadying a headstrong dog is to peg him down with a long cord, and liberate a bird or a rabbit; when this is shot, the dog rushes in, comes to the length of his tether, and is violently precipitated tail over tip. He soon gets tired of this, unless he breaks his neck, and therein lies the danger.

It is debatable whether or not the Retriever proper - i.e. one absolutely steady without slip, for battue-shooting - should be allowed to retrieve fur at all. If once a keen and high-spirited dog has been permitted to go for a wounded hare or rabbit, he enjoys the game so well that he constantly breaks in when he sees Brer Rabbit stricken, and as often as not will totally neglect feather, in favour of fur. The writer has seen such an one retrieving a winged cock-pheasant as proud as you please, drop it to chase a passing hare with a broken hind leg. Of course the pheasant ran off, but the hare was retrieved, and this misguided dog expected to be eulogised for his cleverness. Alas! he was disappointed!

Again, the retrieving of fur is apt to make a dog hard-mouthed. A wounded hare kicking a dog's face for all he is worth, is apt to engender reprisals, and crack go the ribs of the hapless rodent. To break to fur a dog who has a rooted predilection for that form of sport, many methods have been devised, including those which have been alluded to above; but the oddest scheme the writer ever heard of was that evolved by an ingenious enthusiast, who took his dog to a rabbit-warren and encouraged him to chase to his heart's content. When he showed signs of waning enthusiasm and increasing asphyxiation, his owner spurred, or rather kicked, him on to renewed efforts to capture the impossible coney, until at last exhausted nature gave way, and the poor dog "cried a go." According to this up-to-date breaker, chasing fur was an amusement henceforth entirely obliterated from his pupil's schedule of accomplishments.

So far the Retriever has been dealt with in relation to what are supposed to be his orthodox, but somewhat monotonous, duties. For the writer's part, if breaking a dog to his own hand, he would be less rigorous and exacting as regards the question of absolute steadiness. Almost from the commencement of his shooting days he has had a line of faithful helpmates that have had to fulfil the role, not only of the Retriever proper, but also that of Setter, Spaniel, and Sleuth-hound. His Retrievers have to find game, flush it, and retrieve it promptly to hand; nor is he so very particular if they make a start on the last-named mission before receiving the word of command. When one is on a tarn or a snipe-bog, it is as well that one's dog should be off the mark pretty quickly, if he is to successfully retrieve a winged duck, or a snipe that falls fifty yards out in the water, beyond the rushes. Furthermore, the writer fears that he has caused thrills of horror in many a pheasant-slayer's heart when he has sent his best Retriever into a furze-brake to make the rabbits scuttle. For all that, he is always ready to back himself to go out, single-handed, on a moor with one dog, and that dog a Flat-coated Retriever, and bring home a bigger and more varied bag than anyone else with one dog of any other breed; especially if there is any wild-fowl work to be done; for the dogs of the Blackthorn, Darenth, Zelstone, and Black Drake strain are, almost without exception, particularly brilliant at water. To see them work for snipe or duck is a revelation to those who have been accustomed to view a Retriever by the light of the broken-spirited porters who steadily collect game after a battue or drive.