Another writer, along the same line, says: "Consider the wonderful self-control of the pointer. If the savage tiger or the docile cow could be taught such perfect obedience, science would investigate the case as abnormal; but no one considers it strange in a dog. The pointing habit is only the momentary pause before the wild dog springs upon his prey, developed by long training and selective breeding until it is stronger than the natural instinct. Think what self-control is demanded to stand staunch when the bird flushes, and what a hold on primitive passions to pick up the bird and return it gently to the master".

Men often become devoted to their hunting dogs and write about them in the most striking terms. A gem that has a fugitive place in a sporting journal thus describes two hunting dogs: "Old Joe is a strapping, lemon-marked dog, with a heavy head and a tail like a couple of feet of garden hose. But he is a mighty hunter, as sedate as a senior deacon, and as serious as a professor of Sanskrit. Queen is a common-looking; little rat. light and racy, thin as a match-stick and as nervous as the needle of a pocket compass".