The shape and make of a Setter should, as far as the body is concerned, be as similar as possible to that of a perfectly shaped hunter - of the long and low type; a long neck, sloping shoulder, short back, deep but not broad chest, thighs long from hip to hock, hocks straight and stifles well bent, pasterns strong and straight, and loins strong, deep, and wide. The head should be long and fairly broad. The nose should be large and straight, with a turn if anything upwards, brown in lemons and black in other colours. The nostrils should be broad and expanded, the jaws absolutely level, ears set low and hanging level with the head. The eye should be full, sparkling, and intelligent, and the colour thereof should be brown. The hare foot is the more lasting, though it is said that many people prefer the cat foot. The stern should be of moderate length, carried straight without a curl, and shaped something like a sabre. The coat should be fine, silky, soft, and straight. The high carriage 0f head, which is one of the most striking attributes of a perfect Setter, cannot exist without a fine, sloping shoulder.

In selecting a puppy it is important carefully to note all these points, and with this object in view, the best way is to put the puppy on a table, and so to get it nearly level with your eye. Over and above make and shape, it is very important carefully to study disposition and temperament. If you are choosing from a litter of from seven to eight weeks old, it is a good plan to get the puppies all round you in a kennel, and to observe which takes the most notice of you, and is the most intelligent and affectionate; it is also advisable suddenly to stamp your foot, to light a Vesuvian with a good crack, to strike an iron-shod stick against a stone floor, or any dodge of this sort which may give you an idea as to whether there is an inclination to resent noises, and so to develop into gun-shyness.

As to the breaking, or, rather, as the writer prefers to call it, the education of the puppy, this should be taken in hand as soon as your pupil is able to walk. Habits of prompt obedience can then be cultivated easily. It should be a hard-and-fast rule that the puppy should never be allowed to roam about by itself, or to go out with anybody except its master; above all, it should never be frightened in any way, it should never be struck with the hand even, much less with a whip, for many months, and it should never be driven into its kennel. If its owner, too, has time and patience, it may be taught by degrees to point bits of biscuit hidden in long grass, and all that sort of thing.

Any education which has a tendency to develop brain power and to cultivate intellect as well as to promote obedience and a fellow-feeling with its master will prove most valuable, as long as trick-teaching is not overdone, and above all things as long as no severity of any sort is practised. A puppy thus brought up will more than recompense all trouble, when the age for training to game is reached.

At what age this should commence it is impossible to say. The general rule would be to begin as soon as the puppy starts to range freely, but with some young dogs it is necessary to get scent into their noses before they will begin to range at all; so that the age must be left to the intelligence of "the tutor."

Now, this tutor must not be surprised or disappointed if his pupil runs utterly wild and is apparently unmanageable when first introduced to birds. Very often the puppy which has been highly educated will be wilder to begin with than a neglected one; but there will always be this difference, the educated one will know right from wrong at the slightest hint from its master, and its disobedience will soon cease.

Some years since the writer had two beautiful Llewellin puppies which he had educated most elaborately from their earliest babyhood. When they were only about three months old they would drop well to hand, stay where they were told, follow at heel, come well to whistle, and obey all orders promptly; at a very early age, too, they were very high rangers. One day they came for the first time across a brace of birds. They chased them, one giving tongue, for a good mile, flying several fences, swimming a small river, and crossing a railway, and this in spite of all whistles and objurgations. On their return they were talked to a great deal, and had a few very mild slaps with the hand. The next day one of them stood birds well and dropped to wing, and neither was much trouble afterwards. The reason was, simply, they quite understood what they had done wrong, and had no desire, that they were unable to restrain, to displease their master by repeating the offence.

There is plenty of rule-of-thumb dog-breaking done with a thick whip and a loud voice; but this sort of breaking ruins far more dogs than it renders useful. There is no science in the world which requires more intellect, judgment, and discrimination than the real education of sporting dogs.

Fig. 58. - Mr. Purcell Llewellin's English Setter Dan.

It is hard to prophesy as to the future of the Setter, but the writer must confess that he has great misgivings. As long as Setter men are divided, as now, into two classes - the show-bench men, who are content with a certain beauty of form which attracts the judge, but which in many respects is inconsistent with field work, and the field-trial man, who does not care if his dog is as ugly as a pig as long as it can win - it is a bad look-out. There are several very large field-trial kennels in England at the present time, but their owners, as a rule, do not breed on any system; far oftener will they purchase any winner, with little or no regard to looks or pedigree, and then breed from it with no science or discrimination.

The original object of dog shows - i.e. as far as sporting dogs are concerned - was of course to promote and preserve in the greatest possible perfection the properties and attributes, as well as the form-beauty, of the various breeds used in the field, and for some years after their first establishment this most laudable and useful purpose was to a great extent accomplished. At that time, however, it must be remembered that the animals shown were invariably used for shooting, and also that the judges were always sportsmen. It naturally followed, therefore, that although the prize winners were not necessarily superior in their field work, but sometimes even inferior to the dogs which were passed over, still, the winners must have had some merit in their special province, or they would not have remained in existence. Now all this is changed; dog shows have become a medium for money-making, and so the breeding of sporting dogs (so called) has become a regular business in itself and entirely divorced from the proper use of the animal.