me,
contented.

THE DOG--AS A SPORTSMAN

The sheep-dog and the cattle-dog are the workmen of the animal kingdom;
sporting and fighting dogs are the professionals and artists.

A house-dog or a working-dog will only work for his master; a
professional or artistic dog will work for anybody, so long as he is
treated like an artist. A man going away for a week's shooting can
borrow a dog, and the dog will work for him loyally, just as a good
musician will do his best, though the conductor is strange to him, and
the other members of the band are not up to the mark. The musician's
art is sacred to him, and that is the case with the dog--Art before
everything.

It is a grand sight to see a really good setter or pointer working up to
a bird, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to see if the man with
the gun has not lost himself. He throws his whole soul into his work,
questing carefully over the cold scent, feathering eagerly when the bird
is close, and at last drawing up like a statue. Not Paganini himself
ever lost himself in his art more thoroughly than does humble Spot or
Ponto. It is not amusement and not a mere duty to him; it is a sacred
gift, which he is bound to exercise.

A pointer in need of amusement will play with another dog--the pair
pretending to fight, and so on, but when there is work to be done, the
dog is lost in the artist. How crestfallen he looks if by any chance he
blunders on to a bird without pointing it! A fiddler who has played
a wrong note in a solo is the only creature who can look quite so
discomfited. Humanity, instead of going to the ant for wisdom, should
certainly go to the dog.

Sporting dogs are like other artists, in that they are apt to get
careless of everything except their vocation. They are similarly quite
unreliable in their affections. They are not good watch dogs, and take
little interest in chasing cats. They look on a little dog that catches
rats much as a great musician looks on a cricketer--it's clever, but it
isn't Art.

Hunting and fighting dogs are the gladiators of the animal world.
A fox-hound or a kangaroo-dog is always of the same opinion as Mr.
Jorrocks:--"All time is wasted what isn't spent in 'untin'."

A greyhound will start out in the morning with three lame legs, but as
soon as he sees a hare start he _must_ go. He utterly forgets his sorrows
in the excitement, just as a rowing-man, all over boils and blisters,
will pull a desperate race witho