Er Shelley came America to teach Americans before WWI how to train a dog to be steady to wing and shot and kill. The English taught their dogs to go down for safety reasons. Later on in the late 20's and 30's dogs were taught to drop as birds were netted: a lot of hunters could not afford shotguns and shells. Hence came the word droppers: mostly crossbred English Setters and Pointers and registered in the American Field as droppers.Al Brennman, my mentor,trained pretty close to Er Shelley's method with a check cord and riding crop and without any of the modern equipment used today.His methods certainly were not heavy handed. I would put his end product up against anything I have seen yesterday or today. DI