SHEEP DOG NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3495, 8 March 1921, Page 20

SHEEP DOG NOTES.

A Challenge.—“ Terror” holds tlie cheque for £5 referred to in the following letter: — Dear “Terror,” —In the Witness of January 25 you have a long letter from my oldtime critic, “Black and W T hite,” written in a very moderate tone and evidently in a spirit chastened by memories of some of my replies to his former criticisms. Parts of the letter before me I can’t quite follow .the reasoning of, but that is nothing new. One sentence, however, I must take decided exception to. When referring to “blind running,” he says: “A point the writer has long commended, and in return has just been as consistently ridiculed by Mr Lillico and other champions of a certain class of dog.' If “Black and White” can quote one sentence of mine cither in private correspondence or in the press where I have written against or ridiculed having running on the blind a test of trials, I will give £5 to the funds of any trial club he cares to name. If he cannot do this, then let him retract what he has &aid. He is much given, to challenges, so he can take this as a direct challenge of his veracity. I quite appreciate the difficulty any club would have in making “running on the blind” one of their tests, and I may have written to this effect, but I may point out that on most of New Zealand trial courses, a dog in the long pull must of necessity do a certain amount of running on the blind to find bis sheep. The most difficult part of the international test is not merely to get the dog to run out without seeing his sheep, but to get him to leave his first lot. go out on the blind to .find the second lot, and guide them back to the others, which will in the meantime probably have shifted. This is in my opinion the most difficult test I have heard of in any public competition. “Black and White” invites suggestions from me — the mere theorist—on certain points, and I am now going to ask him —the self-styled practical man—how ho is going to conduct a trial without what he terms “tests of a set order”? Every dog must get the same chance to do a, certain amount of work in a given time. This is the fundamental basis of all public competitions. Will your correspondent therefore enlighten us how this is to he done without having “tests of a set order”? We all know that “Black and White” is at times “carried away with the exuberance of his own verbosity.” but in his reply to this I would ask him to confine himself to the points at issue. I am enclosing you my cheque for £5, which you can hand over to the club he names when he has quoted anv remark of mine which ridicules (this is his own word) the idea of havmg “running on the blind” a test of trials. Then we want as concisely as possible his ideas of runing a. trial without having “tests of a set order.”-—I am. etc., James Lit r.iro. Invercargill. February 28. P.S. —In order to incite the snorting instinct of “Black and White.” I make this proviso to my offer: If ho cannot snbI stantlate to your satisfaction what he has | said he is to hand over £3 3s to Mr J. B. Purdue, secretary of the Nightcaps Club, j Let him send cheque with his reply and vou can adjudicate.-—J.L.