he ultimate result
has favoured the Labrador cross distinctly and prominently, proving
how potent, even when grafted upon a stock admittedly various, is
the blood of a pure race, and how powerful its influence for fixing
type and character over the other less vital elements with which it
is blended.

From the first, sportsmen recognised the extreme value of the new
retrieving dog. Strengthened and improved by the Labrador blood, he
had lost little if any of the Setter beauty of form. He was a
dignified, substantial, intelligent, good-tempered, affectionate
companion, faithful, talented, highly cultivated, and esteemed, in
the season and out of it, for his mind as well as his beauty.

It is only comparatively recently that we have realised how excellent
an all-around sporting dog the Retriever has become. In many cases,
indeed, where grouse and partridge are driven or walked-up a
well-broken, soft-mouthed Retriever is unquestionably superior to
Pointer, Setter, or Spaniel, and for general work in the field he
is the best companion that a shooting man can possess.

Doubtless in earlier days, when the art of training was less
thoroughly understood, the breaking of a dog was a matter of infinite
trouble to breeders. Most of the gun dogs could be taught by patience
and practice to retrieve fur or feather, but game carefully and
skilfully shot is easily rendered valueless by being mumbled and
mauled by powerful jaws not schooled to gentleness. And this question
of a tender mouth was certainly one of the problems that perturbed
the minds of the originators of the breed. The difficulty was overcome
by process of selection, and by the exclusion from breeding operations
of all hard-mouthed specimens, with the happy effect that in the
present time it is exceptional to find a working Retriever who does
not know how to bring his bird to hand without injuring it. A better
knowledge of what is expected of him distinguishes our modern
Retriever. He knows his duty, and is intensely eager to perform it,
but he no longer rushes off unbidden at the firing of the gun. He
has learned to remain at heel until he is ordered by word or gesture
from his master, upon whom he relies as his friend and director.

It would be idle to expect that the offspring of unbroken sire and
dam can be as easily educated as a Retriever whose parents before
him have been properly trained. Inherited qualities count for a great
deal in the adaptability of all s