Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher | Page 9

resting. If bags be used you disturb the ferrets' rest and position each time you remove one. Take care to observe this and it will result in a good day's sport.
Always take your ferrets home as quickly as possible after a day's work.
Ferrets kept only for rabbit-shooting should always be fed as soon as the day's work is over, but they must not have more food till the same time the following day. If fed in this way regularly you will find that they will work very well. It is also advisable to let them drink at a stream when they have worked about three hours.
When ferrets have been fast in a rabbit burrow, their paws may be full of down with scratching at the rabbits. Always remove this before placing them to another burrow. Each time you handle the ferret see that the muzzle is alright, and in muzzling with string great care should be taken to remove the long hair on the snout from under the string; otherwise the ferret may experience a tickling sensation, and not work so well as it should; see also that the string is tied tightly around the ferret's neck; if not it can easily pull off the muzzle with its paws.
Whenever a ferret is severely bitten by a Rat the best course to take immediately you get it home is to bathe the wound in clean luke-warm water. See that all the dirt is removed, and then apply a few drops of sweet oil to the wound. Repeat this every four hours, until the wound is healed, but until then do not work the ferret lest more dirt gets into the wound. My experience proves this to be the best way to cure a ferret when it has received a severe Rat-bite.
It is also a good plan occasionally (say once a fortnight) to skin a nice young Rat and give it to the ferret.

SUITABLE DOGS.
And now a word or two as to what is a good dog for waterside hunting, or working with the ferrets. I recommend a cross-bred dog, but I find that it is always better to have the pointer breed in it, whatever other breed you get, because the pointer always has the nose or scent. Pointer and Airedale would be very good, or pointer and Irish terrier. I have often noticed that pure-bred dogs are not much good for hunting in buildings or rivers. I have frequently seen a cross-bred dog stand at one side of the river, and if the wind has been in his favour he has winded his nose across the river, and I have sent him over and he has turned a Rat out, bolted it into the water, and killed it.
The best precaution to take in breaking a dog to Rat-catching and waterside hunting (especially if it be a puppy) is to never allow anybody but yourself to have anything to do with it, it being the worst thing possible to let a working dog have too many masters. Break it in to the ferrets first, and then it is a good plan to go up the river banks, with either a dead Rat or rabbit skin, letting the dog play with it for a while, and then burying it about 18 inches in the river bank; or you may pull up a clod and put it under, only you must not let the dog see where you place it. Then take the dog with you near to where the rat or skin is buried, and you will soon see that the dog knows its work. Do this a few times, and you will see that once the dog finds the dead Rat or the skin it will never forget. The younger the dog the better, the right age to break a puppy this way being about four or five months. Break it in for taking to the water at the same time. If you want a good working dog always keep it on the chain when at home, and feed it at the same time as the ferrets, but do not over-feed it; also give it one dose of castor oil or syrup of buckthorn every 14 days. I recommend this because you never know the nasty poisonous stuff that the dog gets on its stomach from the dirty brook and river sides.
Let me add that all I have written about ferrets and dogs are not given merely from hearsay, but are the facts derived from study and experience during 25 years of dog and ferret-keeping.


PART III. THE HABITS OF RATS.
Rats breed very quickly. This I have often proved by visiting a given haunt for many years together. I remember an instance in point one June, when out with dog and ferrets.