GAME SHOOTING WITH DOGS IN THE UNITED STATES Development of gun dogs in the United States has covered a range of breeds and fields for their respective hunting activities ranging from fox, deer and bear hounds, through the rank and file of Chesapeake bay, Irish water spaniel and springer spaniel water retrievers, on into the ranks of pointers and setters (see Doc: Setters and Pointers). The last-named breeds constitute the main stem of upland game workers as differentiated from marsh dogs. It might be well, in order definitely to establish his entitled place in the record, to recall with full credit a type of gun dog now practically extinct along the vanishing frontiers. This was the sturdy, upstanding settler's dog, a combination strike dog and trailer, capable of helping to provide meat for wagon train, camp or home, and also of acting as watch dog and cattle herder.
"Hounding" game with dogs, save in the pursuit of predatory bears, wolves, lynx and coyotes—and then only by permit—is a practice now more or less barred by most State game codes and falling more and more into disuse, as being against the sounder principles of conservation. When game abounded, and the country, particularly in the south, was a thickly wooded and almost impenetrable barrier of windfall and swamp, "hounding" was the recognized and thorough-going arm of a royal sport and race of men. Plantation owners and ranchmen bred and trained magnifi cent packs capable of imparting an almost exalting contagion to the spirit of good hunting and the hardihood of its followers. To-day, hounding is confined almost wholly to fox-hunting, coon and rabbit hunting. As a gun dog, the hound attained a rating of high efficiency when broken to follow only given scents. Slow running, cold-nosed strike dogs, sticking with their trailing mates to specific quarry and deserting it for none crossing, were the dogs before which much of the country's game supply fell to waiting sportsmen. That the American hound could be trained to run dangerous foreign game was demonstrated when the late Paul J. Rainey selected well-broken stock from several of the country's best big game packs and sent them to Africa with Shelley. Shel
ley, a master-hand at such work, remained in Africa off and on for 13 years, making record kills of lion hunted oy his American hounds. Hunting lion, leopard, cheetah, etc., with hounds, is not now permitted in the Kenya Colony of British East Africa.
Half-bred American hounds and airedale terriers also have been used to hunt mountain lion, panther and other of the large Carnivorae in North and South America. A good hunting rather than a game or plucky hound or dog is the better for following the powerful and more savage wild animals against which the aggressive dog has no chance, the rifle, not the dog, being the im plement used for destruction.
A pack of rough-haired Welsh foxhounds—a breed celebrated for its great scenting powers—imported by Erastus Teftt, of Brewster, N.Y., in 1928 ran and killed 14 out of 20 foxes they found in Putnam County, N.Y. This probably constituted a record in the annals of American foxhunting with hounds that not only kill but eat their foxes.
A conception of gun dogs in the United States, however, rests in the main upon those breeds best adapted to finding, pointing and retrieving game from marsh and upland. Setters and pointers unquestionably occupy the more prominent station with reference to the gun. They are of several strains, foundation stocks of which were imported from England. Llewellin, Gordon, Lavarack and Irish constitute the main stems in setter blood. In many in stances these strains have been inter-bred, which doubtless ac counts for the enormous number of so-called cold-nosed or un registered bird dogs of all breeds. In addition, pointers and setters have, at times, been knowingly or unknowingly cross-bred. Such progeny are classed in bird dog parlance as droppers. In a few cases droppers have turned out splendid gun dogs, seeming to possess, in addition to sound bird dog instincts, the ability to trail and tree squirrels and wild turkey. In the main, however, little if any attention need be paid to such mistakes in canine offspring. Long and short hair, setter and pointer conformation are sometimes found together in the same litter of droppers.