SPANIELS FOR SPORT. By Talbot Radcliffe. Based on H.W. Carlton's classic Spaniels: Their Breaking for Sport and Field Trials. With a foreword by Wilson Stephens editor of The Field.

(1969) 1988 reprint. Small 8vo (122 x 204mm). Pp136. B/w photographs. Black cloth, spine titled in silver-gilt.

"A comprehensive and indispensible guide to training any animal, from a working gundog to a family pet." This is a revision of H.W. Carlton's Spaniels: Their Breaking for Sport and Field Trials (1915) and has gone into many reprints and new editions over decades. A minor classic in its field. Contents include: Part One, Psychology: Psychology before trianing; Spaniels for sport; The perfect spaniel; Basic requirements - standing rabbits, stamina and perserverance, steadiness, retrieving, comments. Part Two, Handtraining, early puppyhood lessons - humanization, retrieving, dropping to command and hand, dropping to fur and feather, waiting for orders before retrieving, other methods of teaching retrieving, dropping to shot, answering to whistle and 'back'. Part Three, Subsequent Training: A natural retriever is a gem beyond price; Hunting - in cover, in the open, check-cord, dropping, chasing, hunting down-wind, hunting within gunshot, missing ground, in hedgerows; Hunting with the gun. Part Four, Mixed Bag, the trained spaniel at work: Retrieving from water; Wildfowling and flighting with spaniels; Lending a hand; Jumping; Spaniels as beaters. Appenices are: Breeding and early care of puppies; Exercising spaniels.