The Dog -- as a Sportsman

by Banjo Paterson

　　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 heis treated like an artist. A man going away for a week's shootingcan borrow a dog, and the dog will work for him loyally, just asa 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 pointerworking up to a bird, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to seeif the man with the gun has not lost himself. He throws his whole soulinto his work, questing carefully over the cold scent, feathering eagerlywhen the bird is close, and at last drawing up like a statue.Not Paganini himself ever lost himself in his art more thoroughly than doeshumble 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 chancehe blunders on to a bird without pointing it! A fiddler who has playeda wrong note in a solo is the only creature who can lookquite 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 carelessof everything except their vocation. They are similarlyquite unreliable in their affections. They are not good watch dogs,and take little interest in chasing cats. They look on a little dogthat 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 opinionas 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 forgetshis sorrows in the excitement, just as a rowing-man, all overboils and blisters, will pull a desperate race without feeling any pain.Such dogs are not easily excited by anything but a chase,and a burglar might come and rob the house and murder the inmateswithout arousing any excitement among them. Guarding a houseis "not their pidgin" as the Chinese say. That is one great reasonfor the success of the dog at whatever branch of his tribe's workhe goes in for -- he is so thorough. Dogs who are forced to combinehalf-a-dozen professions never make a success at anything.One dog one billet is their motto.The most earnest and thorough of all the dog tribe is the fighting dog.His intense self-respect, his horror of brawling, his cool determination,make him a pattern to humanity. The bull-dog or bull-terrier is generallythe most friendly and best-tempered dog in the world; but when heis put down in the ring he fights till he drops, in grim silence,though his feet are bitten through and through, his ears are in rags,and his neck a hideous mass of wounds.In a well-conducted dog-fight each dog in turn has to attack the other dog,and one can see fierce earnestness blazing in the eye of the attackeras he hurls himself on the foe. What makes him fight like that? It is notbloodthirstiness, because they are neither savage nor quarrelsome dogs:a bulldog will go all his life without a fight, unless put into a ring.It is simply their strong self-respect and stubborn pride which will notlet them give in. The greyhound snaps at his opponent and then runsfor his life, but the fighting dog stands to it till death.Just occasionally one sees the same type of human being --some quiet-spoken, good-tempered man who has taken up glove-fightingfor a living, and who, perhaps, gets pitted against a man a shade betterthan himself. After a few rounds he knows he is overmatched, but there issomething at the back of his brain that will not let him cave in.Round after round he stands punishment, and round after roundhe grimly comes up, till, possibly, his opponent loses heart,or a fluky hit turns the scale in his favour. These men are to be foundin every class of life. Many of the gamest of the game are meregutter-bred boys who will continue to fight long after they have enduredenough punishment to entitle them to quit.You can see in their eyes the same hard glitter that showsin the bulldog's eyes as he limps across the ring, or in the eyeof the racehorse as he lies down to it when his opponent is outpacing him.It is grit, pluck, vim, nerve force; call it what you like,and there is no created thing that has more of it than the dog.The blood-lust is a dog-phase that has never been quite understood.Every station-owner knows that sometimes the house-dogs are liable to takea sudden fit of sheep-killing. Any kind of dog will do it,from the collie downward. Sometimes dogs from different homesteads meetin the paddocks, having apparently arranged the whole affair beforehand.They are very artful about it, too. They lie round the house till dark,and then slink off and have a wild night's blood-spree,running down the wretched sheep and tearing their throats open;before dawn they slink back again and lie around the house as before.Many and many a sheep-owner has gone out with a gunand shot his neighbour's dogs for killing sheep which his own wicked,innocent-looking dogs had slain.