Explore Different Gundogs

Before the publication of Scott's Antiquary in 1816, there were few books dealing with the subject of shooting, but one writer in 1789 said there were only three dog breeds capable of receiving instruction and being trained as gundogs: the smooth pointer, the spaniel and the rough pointer, which was qualified as being a dog with long, curled hair, a mixed breed of with blood of the Water-dog and Spaniel.

This is a statement which may surprise readers today, but the truth is that gundogs have taken a long while to be divided up into specific breeds, partly because the names used were frequently inconsistent, added to which dogs were bred for their purpose and abilities, rather than to conform to the standard of a breed which went under a specific name. Today, thankfully, our use of names is more exact than of old but, in the early nineteenth century, pointers, setters and retrievers were all known as spaniels.

Dog adapting to the conditions
In the low country of Scotland and in England breeds changed with the methods of farming. Cornfields used to be cut with sickles but by the twentieth century the reaping machine was commonly used, leaving stubble just inches high, rather than long straws which were often laid and bent. As a result, it had become essential to drive partridge, because a day's shooting required a dog that could find birds which had dropped in thick cover or had run out of sight, whereas before the dog merely had to pick up birds which had fallen dead in the open.

Change, though, from pointer to setter was slow as it appears that there was little realization that conditions in the field were changing. The change was probably best summed up at the turn of the twentieth century by Sir Ralph Payne Galway who wrote: 'A perfect retriever is rarely, very rarely seen working for his master — usually it is for a keeper, and it may be pretty safely asserted that in the British Islands there are not a score of perfectly broken retrievers that work only for and with their masters out shooting.'
 
Dog retriever
The retriever was considered 'the king of all sporting dogs ... without the heaviness of the pointer or the fawning adulation for a master shown by the setter or spaniel. 'The thoughtful sagacity of a well-broken retriever rarely failed him, though it was difficult then to say actually what a retriever should be: 'without doubt, a modern invention necessitated by the increase of game, by its wildness, which causes it to be oftener wounded, as well as by the decagram their comparative use-less ness in shooting nowadays) of pointers and setters.' Doubtless owners of pointers and setters would not then have agreed, nor do they now.

Pointers certainly fell out of favor at that time, but there were I those who recognized the beauty of shape and poise of a pointer at work,'... coming up the field with the wind in her favor on reaching the centre, pulled up as in a cloud of dust, and stood like a statue, attitudinizing like a stage dancer, her toes hardly touching the earth, her whole form quivering.' Indeed to see Pointers quartering under a good handler is considered one of the best sights on moor or field.

Dog setter
The name 'setter' was an old English alternative for the word 'sitter' and such dogs were frequently referred to as spaniels. They were generally divided into two sizes: the larger dog to sit while the net was drawn over the covey of partridges, the smaller dog to find and spring game. Only in recent decades have setters and spaniels been divided into different breeds by name.

Gundogs at work
Today there is still a certain mystery surrounding gundogs and their work. There are still old-style shoots supported by landed gentry, but many small farmers and farm workers also own gundogs and use such dogs to work with the gun, albeit in somewhat less grandiose style.

There are three main stages of gun work: finding the quarry and showing its position to the gunman, flushing out the game and thirdly its retrieval once the game has been shot. Although there are now breeds which hunt, point and retrieve (HPR breeds), pointers and setters which are quiet dogs and will not disturb the game are traditionally employed in the first stage, usually in open country, because if the dogs were to flush the game the guns may be out of shooting range.

Sturdier, lower-set dogs are needed to hunt game in heavy cover, a task usually associated with spaniels but one carried out by many other breeds, Retrievers, German Pointers, Weimeraners and Vizslas among them. Although spaniels and other gundogs also retrieve, this is traditionally the domain of the retriever breeds which are adept at carrying out this work with the required speed, accuracy and gentleness.