Armitage has a section of his book dedicated to “Schooling a Young Dog or Pup and Testing Out A Dog for His Gameness.” In this section he discusses a variety of aspects involved in the trainging of the dog, which I will give a more detailed description of in a future blog. What I wanted to share with you in this post is the disgusting act of “gametesting,” which is essentially forcing a young or unprepared dog to fight another dog in order to see whether or not it could potentially be a fighter. This is something that I feel Armitage describes in a way that I would never be able to, he uses his personal experience and opinions in order to advise others of how to do this testing. Take a look at his thoughts:
In trying out or in testing a dog for gameness, I have found out that you can determine this factor in less time with two dogs than you can with one. I will give you an example of this. I have tried out a certain dog against one dog and he fought for 40 minutes or an hour. I have tried the same dog against the same animal he went the 40 or 60 minutes against, and let him go only 30 minutes, then separated them, sponged him out and put a fresh dog against him and had him stop or quit cold inside of 10 minutes. I have seen dogs that would fight for a couple of hours against one dog, but when tried out against alternated dogs they would not stand the gaff for 40 minutes. Therefore, if you want to be sure of your dog’s gameness when you send him into the pit with your money bet on him, try him out thoroughly beforehand, and you will find out to your satisfaction that you will not be disappointed so often by having one of your dogs quite on you. A man does not feel nearly so badly is he loses with a game dog as he does if he loses with one that quits, or as the Pit men call them “curs.”
Another thing, whenever you try out a dog of bitch for gameness, do not us a dog against a bitch, or vice versa, because I have seen them let up on the opposite sex lots of times, but when put against their own sex they went the limit. Now get this into your head – every time you try a dog severely, you have just taken that much more out of that dog’s system. A dog is just the same as a man, or a game cock, the more he is cut up, beaten up, and abuses, so much more vitality is taken away from him and his nervous system is weakened that much more. If you doubt my word, just ask some old-time prize fighter if he was ever as good after taking a hard beating as he was before he took it.
Give your dog one good test and call that enough. Then match him after he has had a rest of at least sixty days. Some dogs will not get over a severe tryout for months. It all depends on how hard they had to take it. During my career I put 4 dogs on one dog at the same time to test him out, and he cam through it like a real warrior. I never got this dog matched, as he lost an eye in the tryout and died later, on my place of old age.
I put three dogs against the old dog I fought years ago known as Armitage’s Kager or Old Tramp, when I tested him out, and when I fought him for a purse of $1,000.00. I knew they would have to kill him to win, so it was all up to me to put him in A-1 shape, which I did, and he beat a real high-class dog in 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Always, when you intend to test a dog out thoroughly, put him in shape for at least 2 weeks. Work him just as if you were going to place your money on him. If your dog has no wind, do not expect him to go the route. I have seen dog’s condemned as curs because they would not cross the pit, when the fact was that they were choking to death for air, gasping with a husky noise in their throats. DO not ask an animal to do what a human cannot do. Man or beast must have good wind, and to have good wind you must have good lung power in any contest where your breathing apparatus is going to be tested out. Therefore, I want to warn all of you beginners or amateurs, if your dog chokes up or has poor lung power after he is thinned out, discard him from your list as a prospect to bet your money on. It is very seldom that I ever take another’s word for a dog’s gameness and fighting ability when I am going to train him and bet my hard earned money on him, as I have been fooled too often. Hence I try them out to my satisfaction, and many a dog has died from the test I gave them. For this I was sorry, and did everything in my power to try and save them, but it was in some cases too late, for the strain on their system was too severe. I have tried out several dogs (the term “dog” here means dog or bitch) in my time that one would think to be world beaters. They would fight like a house afire for 25 minutes, then quite. I know of two occasions where I tried out a dog and a bitch years apart, put them to the test and they quit. Then they died, not from the punishment they took, but because it just seemed to break their hearts when they had to be the under dog.
No comments:
Post a Comment