As a general rule be very cautious of dealing with anyone who runs more than one breed of dog. It is my experience that the more breeds are kept the more unscrupulous the owner is! No doubt because his expenses and risks are greater.

Mr. Jaquet in his interview with the Sporting and Dramatic - I think it was - is reported to have said that there was now no danger of a novice being taken in by dealers with bad dogs at fabulous prices. I beg to disagree with Mr. Jaquet most emphatically. I have seen too much of this particular branch of the trade to remain under any illusion of this rosy kind. The days of the low-class dog shop may be over, the wolf arrayed in his own fur is extinct, but we now get what is just as dangerous, i. e., wolves in sheep's clothing: Persuasive, respectable looking ladies, indulging in pretty hobbies of Toy dog fancying; dog lovers who cannot bear the notion of parting with their sweet little pets, yet who are tempted invariably by "large cheques " of unspecified sums, and the promise of " kind homes."

We have the decoy judge, equally respectable, who often runs the dog at stud, and the decoy reporter, also a dealer, whose speciality is that of catching our dog fancying friends over the water. So much is this so that "dog dealer " has become a term of abuse.

Now dog dealing is a perfectly honorable profession in itself, if carried on honestly. The purchaser goes to an honest dealer and asks him to find a good dog at a certain price, knowing that he will get good value for his money, and that the dealer will not make more profit on the transaction than is reasonable payment for his experience, trouble, and expense of finding the animal. In this way dog dealing is honourable, but I have no patience with those who use their experience to cheat their customers.

There is also another abuse of which I feel bound to speak, and that is the cheating that goes on with regard to stud dogs. Toy Spaniels are particularly cranky about breeding, and some dogs refuse to mate at all except under certain conditions.

Very often they take a dislike to a bitch and will not look at her. And I know of one case in which a dog took a fancy to a bitch with whom he always mated and got stock, but as long as she lived he would never look at any other.

The poor owner who sees his stud dog refuse to serve a particular bitch is sorely tempted to use another and say nothing about it In my experience, however, most poor owners resist the temptation, while the rich ones do not. There are, however, two sides to the question.

Toy bitches are most uncertain breeders, and the habit of "following up" a service to a celebrated dog with another strong prolific sire is fostered by the habit, which owners of bitches have, of writing furious letters to the owner of the dog if their bitches miss. These letters and the consequent abuse of the dog among the friends of the person who sent the bitch, makes the life of the stud dog's owner a perfect burden, and encourages the very deception as to stud matters which the owners of bitches think they are so very clever in detecting. When a bitch misses it is ten to one she has been mated to the right dog. Bitches won't breed every time, however well mated they may be. The better the bitch and the better the dog the less likely they are to have puppies, and it is the knowledge of this that makes the owner of the stud dog determined to get the visitor in whelp at all costs, and consequently he follows up the mating with a coarse bred dog, who is more certain to produce puppies, with anything and everything, than his champion. It is hardly ever to the advantage of the owner of a stud dog that the bitch sent to him should miss, and he will generally use his best efforts to secure the desired result if only for his own sake.

There are, of course, owners who do not mate with the right dog at all, and play all sorts of tricks, and for both the reasons I have given, i. e., the man who cheats for fear of being blamed or the man who cheats because he is naturally a swindler, I say: Don't trust anybody. It isn't fair on yourself or on them. Take your bitch yourself or send a friend with her. See the mating, and if your bitch misses don't blame the dog. In cases of missing it is almost always the bitch's fault. A dog that has once proved himself a stockgetter is always a stock-getter with favourable circumstances, though some are more prolific than others.

If an owner refuses to allow you to see the service you may be quite sure there is something he had a good reason for not wishing you to see, and the less you have to do with him the better.

Owing to the common stud fraud and the practice of buying puppies and palming them off as being sired by the purchaser's own stud dog, most of the pedigrees are not worth the paper they are written on. The pedigrees that exist are also in a strangely garbled state, and numbers of breeders who ought to know better are absurdly careless in mixing up generations and distorting the names almost beyond recognition. Ch. Prince Imperial, for instance, is often condensed to "Oriel," and eventually becomes a bitch; Comet to Hornet, Rosebell to Bonehill, Alec to Alice, and Baby to Baley, and the two latter errors have even found their way into the K. C. S. B. Then show dogs generally have pet names, which get into the K. C. S. B., as well, so that dogs which are bred the same often appear to have different pedigrees and it requires an expert to follow their intricacies.