Time for a great read

David Tomlinson describes the gems in his book collection and explains why they are better than DVDS for learning about gundogs

THERE WAS A TIME, a few years ago, when it seemed that DVDS and e-books were poised to replace the old-fashioned paper variety. As an unashamed book lover, I thought this rather sad, but simply the onward march of technology. Now, however, I believe that the book will be with us for many years to come. My imac doesn’t have a slot for a CD/DVD player, and I no longer have a DVD player attached to my television, so my little stack of dog-training DVDS are in need of a new home because they are of no use to me any more.

However, I do possess a modest library of books on dogs and dog training. In all, I have nearly 70 titles, almost all of which I refer to on occasion, though some more often than others. The volume I’ve had the longest is Peter Moxon’s Gundogs: Training and Field Trials, given to me for my 19th birthday by my sister. It was a remarkably perceptive gift, for at the time I didn’t have a dog and it was a number of years before I was in a position to own one.

Common sense

Alas, my Moxon isn’t a 1952 first edition but a fourth reprint, dated 1965. I missed a trick, too, as I got to know Peter in the early 1970s but never asked him to sign my copy of his book. If I had to get rid of all my gundog books bar one, this is the volume I would keep. This is not for sentimental reasons, but because it is the most wide-ranging and comprehensive of all my gundog books, full of sound common sense and advice.

It ran through 18 editions and was still in print until recently. Secondhand copies remain widely available for around a fiver.

The oldest book on my shelves is The Sporting Spaniel. The original author was Colonel Claude Cane, but my copy is an edition revised by C A Philips. Curiously, my book is undated, but I believe it was published about a century ago. It’s a fascinating reminder of our spaniels’ sporting heritage, as it includes chapters on the English water spaniel, the black field spaniel and the coloured field spaniel, as well as springers, cockers, clumbers and Sussex spaniels.

The great majority of my dog books are breed-specific, typically dealing with either spaniels or retrievers.

“Xyxyhould remember that feeding raw has a far longer history than feeding dried or canned food”