Dinks
The Dog

EDITOR'S PREFACE

In offering to the American public a new edition of Dinks and Mayhew on the Dog, which, I am happy to find, is largely called for, I have been induced to make a further addition, which will, I think, render this the most perfect and comprehensive work in existence for the dog fancier and dog lover.

For myself I claim no merit, since, with the exception of one or two trivial changes in unimportant recipes in Dinks, and some abridgment of the last admirable work of Col. Hutchinson on Dog Breaking, which is now included in this volume, I have found occasion to make no alterations whatever, and, save a few notes, no additions.

I will add, in brief, that while I believe the little manual of Dinks to be the best short and brief compendium on the Dog, particularly as regards his breeding, conditioning, kennel and field management, and general specialities, there can be no possible doubt that Mayhew's pages are the ne plus ultra of canine pathology. There is nothing comparable to his treatment of all diseases for gentleness, simplicity, mercy to the animal, and effect. I have no hesitation in saying, that any person with sufficient intelligence to make a diagnosis according to his showing of the symptoms, and patience to exhibit his remedies, precisely according to his directions, cannot fail of success.

I have this year treated, myself, two very unusually severe cases of distemper, one of acute dysentery, one of chronic diarrhœa, and one of most aggravated mange, implicitly after his instructions, and that with perfect, and, in three instances, most unexpected, success. The cases of distemper were got rid of with less suffering to the animals, and with less – in fact, no – prostration or emaciation than I have ever before witnessed.

I shall never attempt any practice other than that of Mayhew, for distemper; and, as he says, I am satisfied it is true, that no dog, taken in time, and treated by his rules, need die of this disease.

Colonel Hutchinson's volume, which is to dog-breaking, what Mayhew's is to dog-medicining – science, experience, patience, temper, gentleness, and judgment, against brute force and unreasoning ignorance – I have so far abridged as to omit, while retaining all the rules and precepts, such anecdotes of the habits, tricks, faults, and perfections of individual animals, and the discursive matter relative to Indian field sports, and general education of animals, as, however interesting in themselves, have no particular utility to the dog-breaker or sportsman in America. Beyond this I have done no more than to change the word September to the more general term of Autumn, in the heading of the chapters, and to add a few short notes, explanatory of the differences and comparative relations of English and American game.

I will conclude by observing, that although this work is exclusively on breaking for English shooting, there is not one word in it, which is not applicable to this country.

The methods of woodcock and snipe shooting are exactly the same in both countries, excepting only that in England there is no summer-cock shooting. Otherwise, the practice, the rules, and the qualifications of dogs are identical.

The partridge, in England, varies in few of its habits from our quail – I might almost say in none – unless that it prefers turnip fields, potatoe fields, long clover, standing beans, and the like, to bushy coverts and underwood among tall timber, and that it never takes to the tree. Like our quail, it must be hunted for and found in the open, and marked into, and followed up in, its covert, whatever that may be.

In like manner, English and American grouse-shooting may be regarded as identical, except that the former is practised on heathery mountains, the latter on grassy plains; and that pointers are preferable on the latter, owing to the drought and want of water, and to a particular kind of prickly burr, which terribly afflicts the long-haired setter. The same qualities and performances constitute the excellence of dogs for either sport, and, as there the moors, so here the prairies, are, beyond all doubt, the true field for carrying the art of dog-breaking to perfection.

To pheasant shooting we have nothing perfectly analogous. Indeed, the only sport in North America which at all resembles it, is ruffed-grouse shooting, where they abound sufficiently to make it worth the sportsman's while to pursue them alone. Where they do so, there is no difference in the mode of pursuing the two birds, however dissimilar they may be in their other habits and peculiarities.

Bearing these facts in mind, the American sportsman will have no difficulty in applying all the rules given in the admirable work in question; and the American dog-breaker can by no other means produce so perfect an animal for his pains, with so little distress to himself or his pupil.

The greatest drawback to the pleasures of dog-keeping and sporting, are the occasional sufferings of the animals, when diseased, which the owner cannot relieve, and the occasional severity with which he believes himself at times compelled to punish his friend and servant.

It may be said that, for the careful student of this volume, as it is now given entire, in its three separate parts, who has time, temper, patience, and firmness, to follow out its precepts to the letter, this drawback is abolished.

The writers are – all the three – good friends to that best of the friends of man, the faithful dog; and I feel some claim to a share in their well-doing, and to the gratitude of the good animal, and of those who love him, in bringing them thus together, in an easy compass, and a form attainable to all who love the sports of the field, and yet love mercy more.

Frank Forester.

The Cedars, Newark, N.J.,

SPORTSMAN'S VADE MECUM

TO THE READER

No one work that I am aware of contains the information that is proposed for this little treatise, which does not aspire to any great originality of idea; but the author having experienced in his early days very great difficulty in finding to his hand a concise treatise, was induced to cull, from various authors what he found most beneficial in practice, into manuscript, and this collection he is induced to make public, in the hopes that any one "who runs may read," and, without searching through many and various voluminous authors, may find the cream, leaving the skim milk behind.

Wherever any known quotation is made, credit has been given to the proper persons, but it may be as well to state that most if not all of the Receipts are copies, though from what book is in a great measure unknown to the author, who extracted them in bygone days for his own use.

With this admission, he trusts that his readers will rest satisfied with the little volume which he offers to their indulgent criticism.

"Dinks."

Fort Malden Canada West

BREEDING OF DOGS IN GENERAL

Before commencing to treat of the most correct methods to be observed in the breeding, it will be as well to mention the different varieties of sporting dogs, and also the various sub-genera of each species, of which every one who knows anything of the subject need not be informed; but as this work affects to be a Vade Mecum for sportsmen, young far more than old, it is as well to put before the young idea certain established rules, not to be violated with impunity, and without following which no kennel can be great or glorious. A run of luck may perhaps happen, to set at naught all well defined rules, but "breeding will tell" sooner or later; and, therefore, it behoves any person who prides himself on his kennel, to study well the qualities of his dog or bitch, his or her failings and good qualities, and so to cross with another kennel as to blend the two, and form one perfect dog. This is the great art in breeding, requiring great tact and judgment.

POINTERS

The breed of Pointers, as now generally to be met with, is called "the English," distinguished by the lightness of limb, fineness of coat, and rattishness of tail. Fifteen or twenty years ago this style of dog was seldom seen; but, in place of it, you had a much heavier animal – heavy limbs, heavy head, deep flew-jaws, long falling ears. Which of these breeds was the best 'tis hard to say, but for America I certainly should prefer the old, heavy, English Pointer. Too much, I think, has been sacrificed to lightness, rendering him too fine for long and continued exertion, too susceptible to cold and wet, too tender skinned to bear contact with briers and thorns, in fact, far too highly bred. Not that for a moment I am going to admit that American Pointers are too highly bred; far from it, for there is hardly one that, if his or her pedigree be carefully traced up, will not be found to have some admixture of blood very far from Pointer in its veins. Now this mongrel breeding will not end well, no matter how an odd cross may succeed, and the plan to be adopted is never to breed except from the most perfect and best bitches, always having in view the making of strong, well formed, tractable dogs, bearing in mind that the bitches take after the dog, and the dog pups after the dam, that temper, ill condition, and most bad qualities are just as inherent in some breeds as good qualities are in others. Here, then, to begin with, you have a difficult problem to solve; for, in addition to the defects of your own animal, you have to make yourself acquainted with those of the one you purpose putting to it. Is your dog too timid – copulate with one of high courage. But don't misunderstand me. In this there is as much difference between a high couraged and a headstrong dog as between a well bred dog and a cur. Is your dog faulty in ranging, may be too high, or may be no ranger at all, mate with the reverse, selecting your pups according to what has been stated above. If possible, always avoid crossing colors. It is a bad plan, but cannot always be avoided, for oftentimes you may see in an animal qualities so good, that it would be wrong to let him go past you. But, then, in the offspring, keep to your color.

From this general statement it will be easy to see, that in breeding dogs there is more science and skill required, more attention to minutiæ necessary, than at first sight appears to be the case. Long and deep study alone enables a person to tell whether any or what cross may be judicious, how to recover any fading excellence in his breed, or how best to acquire that of some one else. We will endeavor to give the experience of some fifteen years – devoted to this subject – to our readers, merely resting on our oars, to describe the various breeds of sporting dogs most desirable for him to possess, together with certain data on which to pin his faith in making a selection from a dealer, though as the eye may deceive, it is always as well to call in the ear as consulting physician, and by diligent inquiry endeavor to ascertain particulars.

The characteristics of a well bred Pointer may be summed up as follows: and any great deviation from them makes at once an ill bred, or, at all events, a deformed dog. To commence, then, at the head: – the head should be broad at top, long and tapering, the poll rising to a point; his nose open and large; his ears tolerably long, slightly erect, and falling between the neck and jaw bone, slightly pointed at the tip; eyes clear and bright; neck and head set on straight; his chest should be broad and deep – the contrary clearly shows want of speed and stamina; legs and arms strong, muscular, and straight; elbows well in; feet small and hard; body not over long, and well ribbed up – if not, he will be weak, and incapable of doing a day's work; loins broad at top, but thin downwards; hind quarters broad; hind legs strong and large; tail long, fine, and tapering; hair short, sleek, and close. Here you have the pure English Pointer, and as that is the best type of the dog, we shall not attempt to describe the Spanish one, which is not by any means equal to the English, and is, moreover, so quarrelsome, that he cannot be kennelled with other dogs. Good dogs are of any colors, but the most favorite ones are liver and white, white and fawn, pure black, and pure liver. The two first, however, are better adapted for this country, being more easily seen in cover.

SETTER

We next come to the Setter. His head, like the Pointer should be broad at the top between the eyes; the muzzle though, must be longer and more tapering, and not over thick. Towards the eyes he must have a deepish indenture, and on the top of his skull a highish bony ridge. His ears should be long, pendulous, and slightly rounded. The eyes rather dark and full. His nose soft, moist, and large. Some breeds and breeders affect black noses and palates; but I must say that there are full as many good without the black as with it. I rather incline to the opinion that they are the best notwithstanding. Body like the Pointer, only deeper and broader, if anything; legs long to knee, short thence downwards; feet small, close, and thickly clothed with hair between the toes, ball and toe tufts they are termed; tail long, fine, and tapering, thickly feathered with long, soft, wavy hair; stern and legs down to feet also feathered. His body and feet also should be clothed with long, soft, silky hair, wavy, but no curl in it. This last smells badly of water spaniel. Colors, black and white, red and white, black and tan. These last I consider the finest bred ones. Roan also is good. The Irish setter is red, red and white, white and yellow spotted. The nose, lips, and palate always black. He is also rather more bony and muscular than the English breed, and ten times as headstrong and enduring. He requires constant and severe work, under most rigid discipline, to keep in anything like decent subjection.

SETTER, RUSSIAN

The Russian Setter is as distinct from either of the above varieties as bulldog from greyhound. It is covered more profusely with long, thick, curly, soft, and silky hair, well on to the top of the head and over the eyes. He is also more bony and muscular, with a much shorter and broader head. What he wants in dash and ranging propensities, he makes up for in unwearied assiduity, extreme carefulness, and extraordinary scenting powers. The cross between this and either of the other setters is much valued by some breeders.

SPANIEL

Of Spaniels there are several varieties, but of these the Suffolk Cocker is the only one deserving a notice. All the others are too noisy, too heedless, and too quick on their legs. It is almost impossible to keep any one of them steady, and, therefore, in this country at least, they are totally useless, since you would not see them from the beginning to the end of the day. Yaff! yaff! half a mile off, all the time putting up the birds, and you unable to stop them. The Suffolk Cocker, on the contrary, is extremely docile, can be easily broken, and kept in order. They are extremely valuable, thirty-five guineas being a low price for a brace of pure bred and well broken ones in England. The right sort are scarce, even there. Here, with two exceptions, I fancy they are not.

SPANIEL AND COCKER

In appearance they are much like a raseed setter. The head and muzzle is much the same length and size; ears rather more rounded, but not so long; body deep, broad, and long; hair long and stiffish; legs and feet remarkably short, amounting almost to a deformity, and extraordinarily strong; tail short and bushy; it is usually curtailed a couple of joints. The purest colors are liver and white, fawn and white, and yellow and white. These dogs are slow and sure, remarkably close hunters, and obedient; just the things for cock shooting here. Too much cannot be said in their favor. They are easily taught to retrieve.

RETRIEVER

A Retriever is a cross breed dog. There is no true type of them. Every person has a peculiar fancy regarding them. The great object is to have them tolerably small, compatible with endurance. The best I have seen were of a cross between the Labrador and water spaniel, or the pure Labrador dog.

BEAGLES

In some parts of the States Beagles are used, and it may be as well to point out the characteristics of them. First, then, a beagle ought not to exceed fourteen inches in height; its head ought to be long and fine; its ears long, fine also, beautifully round, thin, and pendulous, rather far set back; body not too long; chest broad and deep; loins broad at top, but narrow downwards; legs strong, but short; feet small and close; hair short and close; tails curved upwards and tapering, but not too fine. There is also another sort of beagles, wire-haired, flew-jawed, heavy hung, deep-mouthed. They are very true hunters, seldom leaving the trail till dead, or run to ground.

BREEDING

It is needless to say that at certain indefinite periods of the year a bitch comes into use, as the term is – generally twice a year, and still more generally speaking, during the time you most require her services, that is, April and September, spring snipe and grouse shooting, in consequence of which you must either sacrifice your pups or your sport. Now I am aware that in the States, for this reason, a bitch is seldom kept. For my part, I do not object to them, for from experience I can so regulate their failings as to prevent their family cares from interfering with their hunting. The knowledge of this enables me to have my pups when I want them, to get the cover of a dog I fancy, when a strange one comes my way also. The best time, then, to put the bitch to the dog is early in January. By this means you have your pups ready to wean by the middle of April. They have all summer to grow in, get strong, and large, and are fit to break in October on snipe first, and then quail, finishing off on snipe the following spring. After this litter, the bitch probably comes into use again in the end of July or in August. Young ones are not so fond of it as old ones, and, consequently, for quail shooting, your bitch is all correct and well behaved, so far as regards the dam. I look upon the breeding of dogs from any except the best and most perfectly formed of their species, as an act of great folly. There are times when it must be done to keep up the breed, or to acquire one; for no one drafts his best bitches unless he is an ass. For my part, I keep five or six constantly, and draft yearly all my dog pups but two or three, say one pointer, setter, and cocker. By this means I have the pick out of a large number of well bred ones for myself, while the drafts pay the expenses of keep and breaking. This is impossible for every one to do, and they must pick up their dogs the best way they can. It is my intention for the future to draft my setters to New York and my pointers westward. My cockers, I fear, will not go off yet, my imported dog having taken it into his head to die, and, until he is replaced from England – I have no stock for breed. I could only get a chance of four while last there out of many valuable kennels. However, I have promises of drafts from two or three parties, and ere summer cock come in, doubtless a brace or so will dare the perils of the sea for me; I have no hesitation in saying that, unless most amply remunerated, I would as soon sell my nose as the best pup in the litter, if I wanted it, nor would I advise any one else to do it. If done, you have to put up with inferior dogs. No; I breed to put a brace or so of the best young dogs yearly into my kennel, for my own use, and, while doing this, I also have, probably, ten good, well formed dogs to pick from, any one of which were one in want, would gladden the heart to get hold of. Sir William Stanley used to breed some fifty pointers yearly. Out of this lot, two brace were culled for his use. The rest were sold. They paid expenses. Many were excellent dogs, but he got the tip-top ones, and so he ought. This is the way a man who cannot afford to give great prices for good dogs must do, if he is much addicted to shooting. It requires two brace of dogs to do a day's shooting as it ought to be done. Each dog at full gallop the whole time, except, of course, when on birds; and to do this he must be shut off work about noon. Few dogs can go from morn till night without extreme fatigue. I never yet saw the dog that I could not hunt off his legs in a fortnight's hunt, taking him out every second day only, and feeding him on the best and strongest food. However, for general purposes, three brace of dogs are sufficient, and, when not often used, two are plenty; but no one ought ever to have less than two brace. It may be managed by always going out with a friend, he keeping one brace, you the other; he shooting to your dogs, you to his. For my part, give me three brace of my own, and let those be the best shaped, strongest, best bred, and best workers there can be. That is my weakness, and to achieve this I yearly sink a sufficient number of dollars to keep a poor man. But all this is digressing most fearfully from the nursery of young pointers and setters.

BITCH IN USE

By receipt on a subsequent page, you will see how your bitch is to be brought into use. We will suppose her well formed and well bred. If faultless, put her to a dog nearly equal, if you cannot get one equal. Save the dog pups which will take after the dam. It is well understood that by breeding from young bitches you have faster and higher rangers; and this also reminds me to say that no bitch ought to be bred from till she is full grown, that is to say, till she is two years old. Many people breed at twelve months, but it is wrong. The bitch is not full grown, and, consequently, the puppies are poor, weak, and miserable. If the bitch has faults, find a dog of the same appearance as her, while he excels in those points she is deficient in. The bitches are partakers of his qualities. Are you short of bone, nose, size, form, temper, look for the excess of these. The cross, or, at all events, the next remove from it, will be just as you wish. Any peculiarity may be made inherent in a breed by sedulously cultivating that peculiarity. Avoid above all things breeding in and in brother and sister, mother and son, father and daughter – all bad, but the first far worse than either of the others, since the blood of each is the same. The other two are only half so. To perfect form should be added high ranging qualities, high courage, great docility, keen nose, and great endurance. That is the acme of breeding. A few judicious crosses will enable you to acquire it for your kennel. To the inattention and carelessness of sportsmen to these points are to be attributed the innumerable curs we nowadays see in comparison to well bred dogs. Anything that will find a bird will do. Far otherwise, to my mind. "Nothing is worth doing at all if it is not to be well done," and I would as soon pot a bevy of quail on the ground, as think of following an ill bred, ill broken, obstinate cur. It may perhaps be as well to state, that when I spoke of "crosses," I had not the slightest intention of recommending a cross of pointer and setter or bull dog. Far otherwise. Let each breed be distinct, but cultivate a "cross," be they pointer or spaniel, from another kennel of another breed of the same class of dogs.

With regard to setters, a little separate talk is necessary, for we have three sorts, English, Irish, and Russian. The cross of English and Irish may and does often benefit both races. So also does the Russian, but I would be extremely careful how I put him to one or the other. Extreme cases may and do justify the admixture, but the old blood ought to be got back as soon as possible. He is of quite a different species to the other, though with the same types or characteristics, yet this cross is rather approaching to mongrel. Having descanted somewhat largely on the preliminary portion, we will pass on to the rearing of the progeny.

BITCHES IN PUP

Bitches in pup ought to be well fed, and suffered to run at large, and I am rather of opinion that by hunting them occasionally, or rather, by letting them see game while in this state, does not "set the young back any." Every one is aware of the sympathy between the mother and the unborn fœtus, and I for one rather do think it of use.

Few bitches can rear more than six pups, many only four, and do them justice. Cull out, therefore, the ill colored, ugly marked bitches first, and if you find too many left, after a few days you must exercise your judgment on the dogs. I don't like, however, this murdering, and prefer, by extra feeding while suckling, and afterwards, to make up for pulling the mother down, which having to nurse six or seven pups does terribly. My idea always is in the matter, that the pup I drown is to be, or rather would be, the best in the litter. It is humbug, I know, but I cannot help it. At that age all else but color and markings is a lottery. Oft have I seen the poor, miserable little one turn out not only the best, but biggest dog. Therefore, I recommend the keeping of as many as possible.

Let the bitch have a warm kennel, with plenty of straw and shavings, or shavings alone. Let her be loose, free to go or come. Feed her well with boiled oatmeal in preference to corn meal – more of this anon in the feeding department, mixed in good rich broth, just lukewarm, twice a day; About the ninth day the pups begin to see, and at a month old they will lap milk. This they ought to be encouraged to do as soon as possible, as it saves the mother vastly. At six weeks, or at most seven, they are fit to wean.

FEEDING PUPS AND WEANING. – LICE. – TEATS RUBBED

Feed them entirely on bread and milk, boiled together to pulp. Shut them in a warm place, the spare stall of a stable, boarded up at the end. Examine them to see whether they are lousy, as they almost always are. A decoction of tobacco water (vide receipt) kills them off. Rub the bitch's teats with warm vinegar twice a day till they are dried up. If this be not done, there is great danger of their becoming caked, besides causing her to suffer severely. She must have a mild dose of salts, say half an ounce, repeated after the third day. When the weather is fine, the young pups should be turned out of doors to run about. Knock out the head of a barrel, in which put a little straw, so that they may retire to sleep when they feel disposed. Feed them three times a day, and encourage them to run about as much as possible. Nothing produces crooked legs more than confinement, nothing ill grown weeds more than starvation; so that air, liberty, exercise, and plenty of food are all equally essential to the successful rearing of fine, handsome dogs. Above all things, never frighten, nor yet take undue notice of one over the rest. Accustom them to yourself and strangers. This gives them courage and confidence. Remember, if you ever should have to select a pup in this early stage, to get them all together, fondle them a little; the one that does not skulk will be the highest couraged dog, the rest much in the same proportion, as they display fear or not. This I have invariably noticed is the case, and on this I invariably act when I have to select a pup, provided always he is not mis-formed. We have now brought our pups on till they can take care of themselves, and while they grow and prosper and get over the distemper, we will hark back a little, and say why we object to fall puppies, – simply because they are generally stunted by the cold, unless they are house-reared. They come in better, certainly, for breaking, but it is not so good to have them after September at the latest, unless it be down South, where, I fancy, the order of things would, or rather should, be reversed.

POINTER AND SETTER

Hitherto I have omitted to compare the respective merits of pointer and setter. This I had intended to have done altogether, but fearful lest fault should be found with me for doing so, I state it as my deliberate opinion, that there is nothing to choose between them "year in and year out." A setter may stand the cold better and may stand the briers better, but the heat and want of water he cannot stand. A pointer, I admit, cannot quite stand cold so well, but he will face thorns quite as well, if he be the right sort, and pure bred, but he don't come out quite so well from it as the setter does. The one does it because it don't hurt him, the other does it because he is told so to do, and his pluck, his high moral courage won't let him say no. For heat and drought he don't care a rush, comparatively, and will kill a setter dead, were he to attempt to follow him. Westward, in the neighborhood of Detroit, the pros and cons are pretty equal. I hunt both indiscriminately, and see no difference either in their powers of endurance, see exceptions above, or hunting qualifications. For the prairies, however, I should say the pointer was infinitely superior, for there the shooting – of prairie hen – is in the two hottest months of the year, and the ground almost, if not quite, devoid of water. Therefore, the pointer there is the dog, and if well and purely bred, he is as gallant a ranger as the setter. Eastward, in New Jersey and Maryland, I am led to believe that setters may be the best there. Except "summer cock," all the shooting is in spring or late fall. Westward, we commence quail shooting on September the first. There, I believe, not until November the first. Here we have few or no briers or thorned things, save and except an odd blackberry or raspberry bush. There they have these and cat briers also, and that infernal young locust tree almost would skin a pointer. Therefore, for those regions, a setter is more preferable. Still more so the real springer.

BREAKING

We will now pass on to the breaking of our young dogs. This may be begun when they are four or five months old, to a certain extent They may be taught to "charge" and obey a trifle, but it must be done so discreetly that it were almost better left alone. Nevertheless, I generally teach them some little, taking care never to cow them, one by one. This down-charging must be taught them in a room or any convenient place. Put them into the proper position, hind legs under the body, nose on the ground between their fore-paws. Retaining them so with one hand on their head, your feet one on each side their hind quarters, with the other hand pat and encourage them. Do not persist at this early age more than a few minutes at a time, and after it is over, play with and fondle them. At this time also teach them to fetch and carry; to know their names. Recollect that any name ending in o, as "Ponto," "Cato," &c., very common ones by the way, is bad. The only word ending in o ought to be "Toho," often abbreviated into "ho." This objection will be evident to any person who reflects for a moment, and a dog will answer to any other short two syllable word equally as well. These two lessons, and answering to the whistle, are about all that can or should be taught them.

RANGING, HOW TAUGHT

Nine months, or better, twelve, is soon enough to enter into the serious part of breaking. This is more to be effected by kind determination than by brute force. Avoid the use of the whip. Indeed, it never in my opinion ought to be seen, except in real shooting, instead of which we would use a cord about five or ten yards long. Fasten one end round the dog's neck, the other to a peg firmly staked in the ground; before doing this, however, your young dogs should, along with a high ranging dog, be taken out into a field where there is no game, and suffered to run at large without control until they are well practised in ranging. Too much stress cannot be laid on this point, as on this first step in a great measure depends the future ranging propensities of the dog. Where a youngster sees the old one galloping about as hard as he can, he soon takes the hint and follows. After a few days, the old one may be left behind, when the pups will gallop about equally as well. These lessons should never be too long as to time, else the effect is lost. Another good plan also is to accustom them to follow you on horseback at a good rate. They will learn by this to gallop, not to trot, than which nothing is more disgusting in a dog. When you have your pup well "confirmed in ranging," take the cord, as above directed, peg him down. Probably he will attempt to follow you as you leave him, in which case the cord will check him with more or less force, according to the pace he goes at. The more he resists the more he punishes himself. At last he finds that by being still he is best off. Generally he lies down. At all events, he stands still. This is just what you desire. Without your intervention he punishes himself, and learns a lesson of great value, without attributing it to you, and consequently fearing you, to wit: – that he is not to have his own way always. After repeating this lesson a few times, you may take him to the peg, and "down" or "charge," as you like the term best, close to the peg in the proper position. Move away, but if he stirs one single inch, check him by the cord and drag him back, crying "down" or "charge." For the future I shall use the word "down." You can in practice which you please. Leave him again, checking him when he moves, or letting him do it for himself when he gets to the end of it, always bringing him, however, back to the peg, jerking the cord with more or less severity. Do this for eight or ten times, and he will not stir. You must now walk quite out of sight, round him, run at him, in fact, do anything you can to make him move, when, if he moves, he must be checked as before, until he is perfectly steady. It is essential in this system of breaking that this first lesson should be so effectually taught that nothing shall induce the dog to move, and one quarter of an hour will generally effect this. In all probability, the dog will be much cowed by this treatment. Go up to him, pat him, lift him up, caress him, and take him home for that day. Half an hour per day for each dog will soon get over a long list of them. There is no more severe, I may as well remark here, or more gentle method of breaking than this; more or less vim being put into the check, according to the nature of the beast. I never saw it fail to daunt the most resolute, audacious devil, nor yet to cow the most timid after the first or second attempt, for it is essential in the first instance that they should obey. The next day, and for many days, you commence as at first. Peg him down, &c., and after he does this properly lift him up and walk him about, holding on to the cord still pegged in the ground, suddenly cry "Down!" accompanying the word with a check more or less severe, as requisite, till he does go down. Leave him as before. If he don't move, go up to him, pat him – a young dog ought never to move while breaking until he is touched – lift him up, if necessary, lead him about, again cry "down," and check him until he falls instantly at the word. This will do for lesson No. 2. The next day commence at the beginning, following up with lesson 2, making him steady at each. Before proceeding to the next step, release the one end of the cord from the peg, take it in your hand, cry "down;" if he goes down, well; if not, check him, pat him, loose the end of cord in the hand, let him run about, occasionally crying "down," sometimes when he is close at hand, at other times further off, visiting any disobedience with a check, until he will drop at the word anywhere immediately. At these times his lesson may last for an hour twice a day. He will get steady more quickly and better.

QUARTERING

His next step is to learn to quarter his ground thoroughly and properly. It is the most difficult to teach, and requires more care and ability, than any other part of his acquirements, on the part of the preceptor. For this purpose select a moderately sized field, say one hundred or two hundred yards wide, where you are certain there is no game. Cast him off at the word "hold up" to the right or left, up wind. This is essential, to prevent their turning inwards, and so going over the same ground twice. (I forgot to say that a cord fifteen feet is long enough now; it does not impede his ranging, and he is nearly as much at command with it as with one twice as long.) If a dog is inclined to this fault of turning inwards, you must get before him up wind, and whistle him just before he turns. This will in the end break him of that habit. If he takes too much ground up wind, call "down," and start him off, after you get to him, in the way he should go. You ought also yourself to walk on a line with the direction the dog is going. This will accustom him to take his beat right through to the fence, and not in irregular zigzags, as he otherwise would do. He must now be kept at these lessons in "down," charging, and quartering, till he is quite perfect and confirmed, setting him off indiscriminately to the right or left, so that when you hunt with another, both may not start one way. Much time will be gained, and the dog rendered by far more perfect by continuing this practice for some time. It is far better to render him au fait at his work by slight punishments, frequently repeated, and by that means more strongly impressed on his memory, than by a severe cowhiding. This latter process is apt to make him cowed, than which there is nothing worse. Many a fine dog is ruined by it. The punishment of the check is severe, and, as I said before, whilst it never fails to daunt the most resolute, so also it can be so administered as not in the end to cow the most timid.

Here it is you are to use your discretion so to temper justice and mercy that you cause yourself to be obeyed without spoiling your creature. For full a month this ought daily to be done, if fine. It is a good plan to feed your young dogs at this stage all together, with a cord round each of their necks, making them "down" several times between the trough and their kennel. Pat one dog, and let him feed awhile. The rest being "down," call him back and make him "down" also, checking him if he does not instantly obey. Pat another now, and let him feed awhile, and so on all through one day, sending one first then another. They learn by this a daily lesson of obedience, and also to let another dog pass them when at point. After your dog is perfectly steady, take him out as before, and when he has run off what is termed the wire edge, introduce him to where there are birds. Set him off up wind, and most probably he will spring the first bird, and chase. Follow him, crying "down." This, in the first ardor of the moment, he is not expected to do, but sooner or later he will. You must now pull him back to where he sprung the birds. By repeatedly doing this, he will chase less and less, always pulling him back to where the bird rises, crying "down." Gradually, by this, he will learn to drop at the rise of the bird, and ultimately to make a point; though most well bred dogs do this the first time. When they do so, cry "down," very slightly checking them if they do not. Great caution is necessary here to prevent their blinking. It is always advisable to teach all young dogs to "down" when they point. When once down, they will lie there as long as you please, and are less likely to blink, run in, chase. You ought, if possible, to get before the dog when you cry "down." It is less likely also to make him blink.

Every dog, old or young, ought to be broken to drop when a bird rises, not at the report of the gun. It renders them far more steady. A young dog ought to be hunted alone till he is perfectly confirmed in these points. It is a very absurd idea to suppose that killing birds prevents their chasing, quite "au contraire." Seeing the bird fall in its flight encourages them to chase. It is far better to get a bird and peg it down so as to flutter and run about before the dog when he is "down." This persisted in soon brings them steady. The other plan takes a much longer time to accomplish. A young dog may easily be taught to back. Make one dog down, and then cry "down" to him, checking him if he does not, and pulling him to where he ought to drop. In the field, after a time, you use the word "toho," at which also he drops or points. A young dog ought never to be hunted with an old one. The latter always has tricks; in fact, is cunning; and at that age a bad fault is easily learnt, but not so easily forgotten. This is Lloyd's art of breaking. A more sensible one I have never seen, nor do I believe is. I have broken many dogs on it, and never saw it fail. Patience, practice, and temper are all that is required, for dogs can only be taught by lessons frequently repeated. When first you shoot over a young dog, an assistant should hold the end of the long line to check him, should he attempt to run in when the bird falls. Lloyd says further, "I never use a whip on any occasion whatever." He trusts to the cord. This is all right while breaking and finishing off a dog, but after that one cannot be expected to lug fifteen feet of cord in one's pocket, though, doubtless, it is very true that it is more efficacious than the whip, and does not make them so apt to blink. Some will sneak away, and are not easily caught, after committing a fault, and others are so shy, that they would not bear a lash, and yet are readily broken with the cord. By this means also dogs are broken to fetch a soft substance, for instance, a glove stuffed with wool is put in their mouths, checking them till they hold it, calling them to you, checking them if they drop it. By degrees you get them not only to hold and bring, but also to fetch it. Practice and patience only are required. Any one possessing them, and with but a slight knowledge of sporting matters, by following the above plain and precise rules, may break his own dogs. I have much pleasure in making it known to the American public. Where the article is taken from I cannot say. I got it a few years ago in manuscript, and Lloyd, Sir J. Sebright's keeper, is the author, and very creditable it is to him. The springer is broken by this equally well with the pointer or setter, omitting the pointing part; teaching, however, the quartering and "down," in the open, most perfectly and thoroughly before ever he goes into covert – till steady on birds, dropping the moment a bird rises and a gun is fired – observing, though, to teach him to take his quarters much closer and shorter. The cocker ought never to be fifteen yards from the shooter, and when two are shooting, should take his quarters from one to the other, turning at the whistle, and only gaining a few yards each turn. For beagles, kennel discipline is of more avail than out-door teaching. They must be taught to come and go, when called. To such perfection is this kennel discipline carried in England, that I have seen fifty couples of hounds waiting in a yard to be fed; the door open, each one coming when called by name; leaving his food when ordered "to bed" or "kennel." "Dogs come over," all the dogs coming over "Bitches come over," when all the bitches come. To do this requires time and patience. Out doors they are taught to follow the huntsman to cover, receiving a hearty cut of the whip if they lag or loiter by the way, whipped up if they neglect to come to the pipe of the horn, if they run to heel, hang too long on the scent, follow false scent, fox, rabbit, or anything else they be not hunted to. With them the whip is used, and severely too, sometimes. And now I have done with the training of dogs, all but the retriever. The cord will apply for him, though in addition to this he must be taught to "seek lost" in any direction you wave your hand. His lessons, however, will extend over a far greater length of time than the others. Age only increases his abilities. The more of a companion you make of him, the more tricks in seeking lost you teach him, the more valuable he becomes. My brother has one that can be sent miles to the house for any article almost, and he brings it. Last winter he sent him for the roast before the fire, and after a tussle with the cook it came sure enough. He is one of the most knowing dogs I ever saw. A large black fellow, of what breed I know not, Newfoundland and setter though, I fancy. Four pounds was his price. He is well worth five times four. For wounded birds he is invaluable, and has only one fault; he does not "charge," which all retrievers, as well as every other sporting dog, should do; else while you are loading, and they rushing about like mad, the birds get up, and you lose a chance, from either not being ready, or your gun being empty. Before concluding, I will state all the words and motions requisite to teach your pointers and setters. "Down," "Hold up," "Toho." Holding up your hand open means "down," or "Toho," where another dog is pointing. A whistle solus to come in "to heel" – that word for them to get behind you; a whistle and a wave of the hand to the right for them to quarter that way; ditto whistle and wave to the left to quarter to the left. Avoid shouting as much as possible. Nothing is more disgusting than to be bawling all the time. If your dog don't heed your whistle, get him to heel as fast and as quietly as possible, and administer a little strap, whistling to them sharply to impress it on their mind. Never pass by a single fault without either rating or flogging. Always make your dogs point a dead bird before retrieving it; and nothing is more insane than to loo on your dogs, after a wing-tipped bird. Hunt it quietly and deliberately. I know it is difficult to restrain yourself sometimes. How much more difficult, then, to restrain your dogs. Far better to lose a bird, a thing I detest doing, than run the chance of spoiling a young dog. Never take a liberty with him, however you may do so with an old one, though even he can and will be made unsteady, by letting him chase or have his own way. One thing leads to another. I thought I had got through, but methinks it is as well to state the best plan to find a dead bird in cover, or out also, for that matter. Walk as nearly as possible to where you fancy the bird fell; there stand, nor move a step, making the dogs circle round you till they find it. Practise them at this as much as any other part of their education, calling them constantly back if they move off. Should you find a dog going off, notice the direction, but call him back. If he should still return there, you may presume it is a runner. Let him try to puzzle it out, while you keep the other dog at work close to you. By this plan it is extraordinary what few birds you will lose in a season. Always hunt a brace of dogs. More are too many; one is just one too few. It is too pot-hunterish, too slow. You lose half the beauties of the sport seeing your dogs quartering their fields, crossing one another in the centre, or thereby, without jealousy, backing one another's points – both dropping "to shot" as if shot. You get over twice as much ground in a day. This, in a thinly sprinkled game country, is something. Where very plentiful, you find them all the quicker.

FEEDING

With regard to the feeding of dogs, some few words are necessary, and we will endeavor to point out the best way to manage them properly, and with a due regard to economy. Where only one or two dogs are kept, it is presumed that the refuse of the house is ample for them. It will keep them in good order and condition; but where more are kept, it will be necessary to look further for their supplies. We will therefore treat them as one would a kennel, distinguishing town from country; for in the one what would be extremely cheap, in the other would be dear. For ordinary feeding, then, in town, purchase beef heads, sheep ditto, offal, i.e. feet, bellies, &c., which clean. Chop them up and boil to rags in a copper, filling up your copper as the water boils away. You may add to this a little salt, cabbage, parsnips, potatoes, carrots, turnips, or any other cheap vegetable. Put this soup aside, and then boil old Indian meal till it is quite stiff. Let it also get cold. Take of the boiled meal as much as you think requisite, adding sufficient of the broth to liquefy it. This is the cheapest town food. In the country during the summer, skimmed milk, sour milk, buttermilk, or whey, may be used in place of the soup. In the winter, it is as well to give soup occasionally for a change. Never use new Indian flour. It scours the dogs dreadfully. Old does not. The plan I adopt is, to buy Indian corn this year for use next, store it, and send it to grind as I require it; and as the millers have no object in boning the old meal, returning new for it, I insure by this means no illness from feeding in my kennel. Although Indian corn has not either so much albumen or saccharine matter in it as oats, it does tolerably well with broth; but when the greatest amount of work is required in a certain given time from a certain quantity of dogs, as in a week's, fortnight's, or month's shooting excursion, I always use oatmeal, for two reasons: – 1st, it is far more nourishing in itself, a less bulk of it going further than corn meal: – 2nd, you cannot depend on getting old meal in the country, nor yet meat always to make soup. The dogs fed on oatmeal porridge and milk, which you always can get, do a vast deal of work, and have good scenting powers. Using these different articles, I calculate each dog to cost me one shilling York currency per week, and I pay fifty cents per bushel for Indian corn, six dollars per barrel for oatmeal (old), one York shilling for beef head, milk three cents per quart for new, probably, one and a half for skim. In a house there are always bones, potatoe peelings, and pot liquor. By cleaning the potatoes before peeling, and popping all into the dog pot, a considerable saving is effected in a year, and the dogs are benefited thereby. Mangel Wurtzel and Ruta Bagas, I believe they call them this side the water, are easily grown, and are good food, boiled up with soup.

CONDITION

This brings me on to what is termed "condition," in other words, that form of body best adapted to undergo long and continued exertion. It is equally certain that a dog too fat, as well as one all skin and bone, is not in this state. These are the two forms from which different people start to bring their animals to the mark. Of the two, I certainly prefer the fat one. During the summer time, dogs should have plenty of air, water, and exercise. This is easily managed by taking them out whenever you go walking or riding, or letting them be loose all day, kennelling at night, and when this is done, by a mild dose of physic a fortnight before the season, and additional exercise along a hard road to harden their feet, say two or three hours daily, you have your dogs in fair working order. When you have a dog too fat, you must purge him, and put him through a course of long but slow exercise at first, quickening by degrees, till you work off the fat, and leave substance and muscle in its place. With a lean dog you have a far harder job to manage, and one which takes a long time to accomplish. A mild dose to put him in form first, then the best, strongest, and most nutritious food you can get. Oatmeal and strong broth, gentle and slow exercise, this is the plan to put beef on his bones without fat. As he grows in substance, increase and quicken his work. Any person living in the country does or ought to take his dogs out when he rides or drives. The pace is fast and severe enough for them, and generally lasts sufficiently long. My dogs are exercised this way every time the horses go out, and are kept in fine order, if anything too fine, perhaps; but, then, what there is, is all muscle and hard flesh. During the shooting season, always feed your dogs with warm meals. Three o'clock is the best time at that season of the year, and a separate mess kept warm for your brace at work, when they return. Nothing conduces more to the keeping your dogs in condition than regular feeding hours and regular work. One meal a day is sufficient. Three o'clock is the best hour, as the dogs have tolerably emptied themselves by the next morning. I omitted to mention in the proper place to accustom your pups to the same food as when kennelled they will get. For this purpose, as soon as they feed well, give them regular kennel food, except that they must have three feeds a day for some six months, and after that two, till they are full grown. Use as little medicine as possible. Always feed your worked dogs immediately they get home. If you wait awhile, and they are tired, they curl themselves up, get stiff, and don't feed properly; and if they so refuse their food, and are by any accident to be out next day, they will not be up to the work. No dogs, however, can stand daily work properly for more than three days, and even that is more than enough for them, but they will stand every second day, if well attended to, for a considerable time. Always see your dogs fed yourself. No servant will do it as it should be done. Ten minutes or a quarter of an hour devoted to this as soon as you return from the field, will be more than repaid when next you use them. If you ride, or rather drive to your ground, as is best to do when more than a mile away, ride your dogs also; ditto as you return. Every little helps, and this short ride wonderfully saves your animals. I invariably do this. But when I drive, say twenty miles or so, to a shooting station, I generally run one brace or so the whole way, and the other brace perhaps ten miles, taking out next day that brace which only ran the short distance. Always on a trip of this kind take a bag of meal with you also. You are then safe. The neglect of this precaution in one or two instances has obliged me to use boiled beef alone, to the very great detriment of the olfactory senses of my dogs. Their noses, on this kind of food, completely fail them. Greasy substances also are objectionable for the same cause, unless very well incorporated with meal. For this reason I object to "tallow scrap" or chandlers' graves; but this I sometimes use in summer. Regular work, correct feeding, and regular hours, that is the great secret of one man's dogs standing harder work than others. A little attention to the subject will enable any one to keep his animals pretty near the mark. Amongst the receipts will be found one used in England for feeding greyhounds when in training, if any one likes to go to the expense of it.

KENNEL

This treatise would not be complete without making some remarks on that very essential thing, the kennel. Where only a brace of dogs are kept, the common movable box kennel is sufficient. This should be large enough to hold the two comfortably, with a sharp pitch to the roof and projecting front; but I should recommend one for each dog slightly raised from the ground, sufficiently high for the dog to stand up in, and wide enough for him to turn round in. The entrance had better be boarded up, except a hole for him to enter and get out by. But where a large number of dogs are kept, this plan of separate houses is expensive, and in their place I would recommend a brick building sixteen feet long by five feet wide and six feet high, or, if brick be not get-at-able, a boarded house will do; but it ought to be lined and boarded outside, the space between the two filled up with sawdust, and weather-boarded. Besides, this sixteen feet must be divided into three compartments right up to the top, one eight feet for the dogs, one five for the bitches, and one three feet for the worked dogs. The doors should be large enough to admit a man to clean. The beds ought to be raised on a bench from the floor, this bench movable on hinges at the back, so that it can be hoisted up, and cleaning done below. The dogs ought to be prevented getting under their beds, by a board reaching from the outside edge of the bench to the floor. Six or eight inches is sufficient raise. The floor of this kennel should slope outwards, to carry off wet. The door should have a small hole in it, with a swing door, so that by pushing against it, the dogs can get either in or out. In front of these two, that is to say, the dog and bitch departments, a court-yard, either paved or flagged, both preferable to brick, since they dry quicker, and consequently there is less fear of kennel lameness, caused by paddling on a damp floor. These courts ought to run out at least ten or fifteen feet to the front, and of course the partition kept up between the two. This outside court may be palisaded, but it should be at least ten feet high, else the dogs are liable to break kennel; and the front of the house also at the top should be fortified, to prevent their eloping that way. If possible, a stream of running water should be conducted through the yards; it aids its daily washing, as well as enabling the dogs to get as much pure water as they choose. When this cannot be had, a trough must be daily filled for their use. Clean wheat straw, removed twice a week, or shavings of pine or cedar when to be had are better, must be used for their beds. Always feed your dogs together in a V shaped trough, raised slightly from the ground, taking care to restrain the greedy and encourage the shy feeders. In a building of this sort, they will be perfectly warm and comfortable. Every portion of it must be daily cleaned out, and the rubbish carried away. Twice a year it should be whitewashed inside and out, and fumigated with sulphur, tobacco, &c. This considerably helps to destroy vermin. Nothing conduces more to disease than a filthy kennel, nothing vitiates a dog's nose more than fœtid smells. In the rear of this kennel should be your boiling house, if your establishment requires one. All that is required is a copper, set in brick, with a chimney, to boil mush and meat in, a barrel to hold soup, and a ledge or tray, three or four inches deep, to pour the mush in to cool and set; a chopping block, knife, ladle, with long wooden handle, to stir and empty the copper with, a few hooks to hang flesh on, when you use horse-flesh, &c., in place of heads – equally good, by the way, when you can get it – shovel, broom, and buckets. I believe all in this department is now complete and requisite, when you keep six or more dogs. The spare place is good for breeding bitches, when you do not require it for your tired dogs, as also for sick ones. In fact, you cannot well do without it.

And now methinks I may safely add a few words on guns. This, of course, especially to the rising generation. I need not tell you not to put the shot all in one barrel and the powder in the other, though I have frequently seen it done, aye, and done it myself, when in a mooning fit; but I will say, never carry your gun at full cock or with the hammers down, than which last there cannot be anything more dangerous. The slightest pull upon the cock is sufficient to cause it to fall so smartly on the cone or nipple as to explode the cap. Positively, I would not shoot a day, no, nor an hour, with a man that so carried his gun. At half cock there is no danger. By pulling ever so hard at the trigger, you cannot get it off; and if you raise the cock ever so little, it falls back to half cock, or, at the worst, catches at full cock. Never overcharge your gun. Two to two and a half drachms of powder, and one ounce to one and a quarter of shot, is about the load. For summer shooting, still less. Never take out a dirty gun, not even if only once fired out of, even if you have to clean it yourself. After cleaning with soap rubbed on the tow in warm, or better, cold water, without the soap, if not over dirty, remove the tow, put on clean, and pump out remaining dirt in clean warm water, rinsing out the third time in other clean warm water. Invert the barrels, muzzle downwards, while you refix your dry tow on the rod. Work them out successively with several changes of tow, till they burn again. Drop a few drops of animal oil – refined by putting shot into the bottle; neat's foot oil is best for this – on to the tow, and rub out the inside of barrels with it well. Wipe the outside with oil rag, cleaning around the nipples with a hard brush and a stick; ditto hammers and the steel furniture. Use boiled oil to rub off the stock, but it must be well rubbed in. Before using next day, rub over every part with a clean dry rag. Nothing is more disgusting than an oily gun, and yet nothing is more requisite than to keep it so when out of use. In receipts you will find a composition to prevent water penetrating to the locks, which ought to be as seldom removed as possible. I shall not tell you how to do this, for if you do know the how, where is the necessity, and if you don't, in all probability you would break a scear or mainspring in the attempt, as I did, when first I essayed, and after that had to get the gamekeeper to put it together. So your best plan in this latter case is to watch the method for a time or two, when you will know as much of the matter as I do.

The finest barrels are rusted the most easily, and suffer the more detriment by rusting. Of course the fouler the gun the greater the evil that arises from its being left foul. In hot weather, barrels suffer infinitely more than in cold; and in wet, than in dry. When dampness and heat are combined, the mischief is yet augmented; and, probably, the worst conditions that can be supposed are when, to dampness and heat, a salt atmosphere is superadded.

No man who owns a fine gun, which he values, ought ever to put it aside after use without cleaning, even if he have fired but a single shot. Again, every man who loves his gun, should make it a point to clean it with his own hands. It may do in Europe, where one has a game-keeper at his elbow who knows how to clean a gun better than he does himself, and who takes as much pride in having it clean as he. Use strong and clean shooting powders. Don't use too large, nor yet too small shot. Six, seven, and eight are about your mark for ordinary work; for duck, from common gun, number four. Never leave your dog whip at home: you always want it most on those occasions. A gun thirty-one inch barrel, fourteen gauge, and eight pounds weight, is as useful an article as you can have. Never poke at a bird, that is, try to see him along the barrels. If you do, you never can be a good or a quick shot. Fix your eye or eyes on the bird, lift up your gun, and fire the moment it touches your shoulder. Practise this a little, and believe me you will give the pokers the go by in a short time. It is the only way to be a sharp shot. And now I will have done, trusting I have not wasted your time in reading so far to no purpose.

CREDIT GIVEN FOR RECEIPTS

In the following receipts you will find those of Blaine Youatt, Myres, Herbert, and several other people, but as I really don't know to whom the credit is due for each individual one, I trust to be forgiven. This much, however, I can say, there are not more than one or two of my own. I have tried most, if not all, and found them good. Some are not quite as in the original, having been amended by a sporting medical man, a friend of mine, to suit the new fashion of preparing medicines.

RECEIPTS

We will commence these by directions to give a dog physic. If he is not over large, you can manage by your self. Invert a bucket, and sit on it. Set the dog down on his haunches between your legs, holding him up with your knees. Tie a cloth round his neck; this falling over his fore-paws is pressed against his ribs by your knees. His fore-legs by this dodge are hors du combat. With the finger and thumb of one hand force open his jaws, elevating his head at the same time with the same hand. If a bolus, with the other hand pass it over the root of the tongue, and give it a sharp poke downwards. Close the mouth, still holding up the head, till you see it swallowed. If a draught, give a mouthful, close the mouth, hold up the head, and stop the nostrils. Repeat this, if the draught is too large to be taken at once. If the dog is very large, you must have an assistant, else in his struggles he will upset physic and yourself into the bargain.

GENERAL REMARKS ABOUT DOGS IN PHYSIC

Keep them dry and warm, especially when you use calomel or any mercurial preparation. Always remove them from the kennel, and put them into an hospital apart from the rest, to prevent infection, as well as to insure the poor brutes quietness. Study the appearance of the eyes, feet, nose, extremities, pulse, &c.

To make a bitch inclined to copulate.– Seven drops Tincture of Cantharides twice a day till effect is produced – about six days, probably.

Mange.– Caused by dirty kennels, neglect, want of nourishing, or improper, food. Cure – 1 oz. salts, if dog of moderate size. Rub every third day well into the skin quantum suf. of the following mixture: —

Train oil – tanner's will do – one quart; spirits turpentine one large wineglass full; sulphur sufficient to let it just run off a stick. Mix well. Three applications are generally sufficient. Let it stay on the animal for a fortnight, when wash well with soap and water. Remember, it takes nearly two hours to well scrub the above into the skin. Smearing over the hair is no use. It must get well into the skin; and if neatly and properly done, the dog scarcely shows the application.

Worms.– ℞ Cowhage, half a drachm; tin filings, very fine, four drachms. Make into four or six balls, according to size of dog. One daily, and a few hours afterwards a purge of salts or aloes. Powdered glass, as much as will lie on a shilling, i.e. a quarter dollar, new coin, in lard. Repeat once or twice alternate days. Finish off with one to two drachms Socotrine Aloes, rolled up in tissue paper. Mind, the glass must be ground into the finest kind of powder, else it will injure the coats of the stomach.

To make a dog fine in his coat.– A tablespoonful of tar in oatmeal. Make bolus.

Distemper.– Distemper is caused by low keep, neglect, and changes of atmosphere. Symptoms of the disease are as follows: – Loss of spirit, activity, and appetite, drowsiness, dulness of the eyes, lying at length with nose to the ground, coldness of extremities, legs, ears, and lips, heat in head and body, running at the nose and eyes, accompanied by sneezing, emaciation, and weakness, dragging of hinder quarters, flanks drawn in, diarrhœa, sometimes vomiting. There are several receipts for this, the worst and most fatal of all diseases. One is better than another, according to the various stages. This first, if commenced at an early stage, seldom fails. Half an ounce of salts in warm water, when the dog is first taken ill; thirty-six hours afterwards, ten grains compound Powder of Ipecacuanha in warm water. If in two days he is no better, take sixteen grains Antimonial Powder, made into four boluses; one night and morning for two days. If no improvement visible, continue these pills, unless diarrhœa comes on, in which case you must use the ipecacuanha day about with the pills. If the animal is much weakened by this, give him one teaspoonful Huxam's Tincture of Bark three times a day. Keep warm, and feed on rich broth. James's Powder is also almost a certain remedy Dose four grains; or Antimonial Powder and Calomel, three parts of first to one of latter, from eight to fifteen grains; or, after the salts, Ant. Powder, two, three, or four grains, Nitrate Potash, five, ten, or fifteen grains; Ipecacuanha, two, three, or four. Make into ball, and give twice or three times a day, according to appearances. Repeat the purge or emetics every fourth day, but avoid too great looseness of bowels. Diarrhœa sometimes supervenes, in which case give Compound Powder of Chalk, with Opium, ten grains. In case of fits coming on, destroy the animal. The same may be said of paralysis. If this disease is taken in its early stage, and attended to, and the dog kept warm, there is not much danger. Otherwise it is very fatal.

Wounds.– Poultice for a day or two; then apply Friar's Balsam, covering up the place.

For a Green Wound.– Hog's lard, turpentine, bees' wax, equal parts; verdigris, one fourth part. Simmer over a slow fire till they are well mixed.

Purgative Medicines.– Salts, one ounce; Calomel, five grains; or Socotrine Aloes, two drachms for moderate sized dog.

Stripping Feet.– Wash in bran and warm water, with a little vinegar; after apply Tincture of Myrrh. Apply sweet oil before he goes out. If his feet are tender, wash them in brine, to harden them. When actually sore, buttermilk, greasy pot liquor, or water gruel, are best. Brine inflames. The dog should be kept at home till feet are healed. Then apply the brine and vinegar.

Canker in the Ear.– Wash well with soap and warm water; fill up the ear with finely powdered charcoal or powdered borax. Clean out daily with sponge on stick and warm water, and repeat the dusting till it heals. Or, perhaps, the best receipt is, – clean out ear with sponge fastened on a pliable stick, using warm soap and water. When quite clean, dip the sponge in Sulphate of Copper-water, turning it gently round. Put seton in the neck just under the ear.

Oak Bark, one pound, chopped fine, and well boiled in soft water. When cold, take of the Decoction of Bark four ounces, Sugar of Lead, half a drachm. Put a teaspoonful into the ear night and morning, rubbing the root of ear well, to cause it to get well into the cavities. This is one of the best receipts in this book.

To make Sulphate of Copper Water.– Sulphate of Copper half a drachm, water one ounce. Mix well and keep corked.

External Canker of Ear.– Butter of Antimony, diluted in milk to the thickness of cream, will cure it; or Red Precipitate of Mercury, half an ounce, with two ounces of hog's lard, mixed well.

To make a Seton.– Take a dozen or two strands of a horse's tail; plait them; rub blistering ointment on them. Pass it through two or three inches of the skin with a curved surgical needle. Tie the two ends together. Move daily.

Bleeding.– You may readily bleed a dog in the jugular vein by holding up his head, stopping the circulation at the base of the neck. Part the hair, and with the lancet make an incision, taking care not to stick him too deeply. If the animal rejoices in a heavy coat, it may be necessary to shave away the hair. From one to eight ounces are the quantities; but in this, as in most prescriptions, the old proverb is the safest – "Keep between the banks."

For a Strain.– Use Bertine's Liniment; or one ounce Turpentine, half a pint of old beer, half a pint of brine; bathe the part and repeat; or Sal Ammonia, one ounce, vinegar one pint.

Bruises or Strains of long standing.– Gall, Opodeldoc, excellent. Shaved Camphor two ounces, Spirits of Wine three quarters of a pint. Shake well, and cork close, placing it near the fire till the camphor dissolves. Then add a bullock's gall. Shake well together. Apply, rubbing it well into the part affected till it lathers.

Dog Poisoned.– Give teacupful of castor oil. After he has vomited well, continue to pour olive oil down his throat and rub his belly.

Staggers and Fits.– This generally happens in warm weather. Throw water on them, if convenient. If not, bleed in neck, if you have lancets. If not, with your knife slit the ears, which you can cause to adhere together again; or run your knife across two or three bars next the teeth. Bitches coming off heat are more subject to this than dogs in good health.

To reduce the time a bitch is in heat.– Give her a little Nitre in water, and a dose of Calomel, four grains or thereabouts, followed by salts or aloes.

Bilious Fever.– Is caused by want of exercise and too high feeding. Calomel, six or eight grains; or, in an obstinate case, Turpeth Mineral or Yellow Mercury, six to twelve grains in a bolus.

To destroy Lice.– Sometimes the receipt below for fleas will prove efficacious, but not always; but a small quantity of Mercurial Ointment, reduced by adding hog's lard to it, say an equal quantity, rubbed along the top of the dog's back never fails. The greatest care must be taken to keep the animal warm.

Fleas.– Scotch snuff steeped in gin is infallible; but must be used with great care, and not above a teaspoonful of snuff to a pint of gin, – as the cure, if overdone, is a deadly poison.

Torn Ears.– Laudanum and brandy, equal parts. Mix well. Apply alternately with sweet oil.

Feed for Greyhounds in training.– Wheat flour and oatmeal, old, equal parts. Liquorice, aniseed, and white of eggs. Make into a paste. Make loaves. Bake them. Break up into very rich broth.

Swelled Teats.– Make pomade of Camphorated Spirit, or brandy, and goose grease, two or three times a day.

Inflammation of the Bowels.– Symptoms: Dulness of appearance and eyes; loss of appetite; lying on the belly, with outstretched legs; pulse much quickened; scratching up of the bed into a heap, and pressing the belly on it; desire to swallow stones, coal, or any cold substance not voidable; inclination to hide away. It is very dangerous; requires active treatment. Bleed most freely, till the dog faints away. Clap a blister on the pit of the stomach. Give Aloes, fifteen grains, and Opium, half a grain. Repeat dose three times a day. Bleed after twelve hours, if pulse rises again, and continue dosing and bleeding till either the dog or inflammation gives in. No half measures do in this disease. After determining that it is inflammation of bowels, set to work to get the upper hand. When that is done, there is no trouble. Otherwise it is fatal. Feed low, and attend carefully to prevent relapse.

Films over the Eyes.– Blue stone or Lunar Caustic, eight grains, spring water, one ounce. Wash the eyes with it, letting a little pass in. Repeat this daily, and you will soon cure it.

Films caused by Thorn Wounds. —Rest the dog till perfectly healed over, washing with rose water. If much inflammation, bleed, and foment with hot water, with a few drops of laudanum in it – about forty drops of laudanum to one ounce of water; or two grains of opium to one ounce of water – one as good as the other. Then apply four or five times a day the following wash: – Superacetate of Lead, half a drachm, Rose Water, six ounces.

To extract Thorns.– Cobbler's wax bound on to the place, or black pitch plaster or a poultice, are equally good.

To preserve Gun Barrels from rust of salt water.– Black lead, three ounces; hog's lard, eight ounces; camphor, quarter ounce; boiled together over a slow fire; the barrels to be rubbed with this mixture, which after three days must be wiped off clean. This need not be repeated above twice in the winter.

Bite of a Snake.– Olive oil, well rubbed in before a fire, and a copious drench of it also.

To render Boots or Shoes Water-proof.– Beef suet, quarter of a pound; bees' wax, half a pound; rosin, quarter of a pound. Stir well together over a slow fire. Melt the mixture, and rub well into the articles daily with a hard brush before the fire.

To Soften Boots.– Use hog's lard, half a pound; mutton suet, quarter of a pound; and bees' wax, quarter of a pound. Melt well, and rub well in before the fire; or currier's oil is as good, barring the smell.

Water-proofing for Gun Locks.– Make a saturated solution of Naphtha and India rubber. Add to this three times the quantity of Copal Varnish. Apply with a fine, small brush along the edges of the lock and stock.

DISTEMPER

How best to convey to my readers a clear, and at the same time succinct account of this disease, has much troubled me. This is now the third attempt made to set before my brother sportsmen, who have had little or no experience, in the plainest terms, the symptoms and features of the disease, as well as the best remedies to be applied to its various stages and ever varying types. After considerable doubts on the subject, I fancy that by setting before you a series of cases which have come under my own treatment, the peculiar features of each case, the remedies prescribed, and the termination, whether fatal or otherwise, I shall best serve the interests of my readers. I beg expressly to state, that with one or two exceptions – the cases of the older dogs – of which I write from recollection, after a lapse of several years, and consequently cannot be so positive about, the others have all recently passed through my hands, and the course of treatment, &c., has been especially noted, and here recorded with minute exactness. The range of cases are, I believe, sufficiently numerous to meet any form and stage of the disease, from the most simple to the most complicated and fatal. With the sole exception of chorea or paralysis, a case of which I have never fairly seen through, one or two cases are noted, in which this would have been the termination, but for the remedies applied. The system pursued has been a combination of a great many various receipts, adapted to each peculiar case; and through the very severe cases that this year have depopulated my kennel, I have been under great obligations to a very talented medical man, whose advice I ever found of great service, and whose professional knowledge enabled him so to vary the quantities and forms of the medicines as best to overcome some particular form or other. Every keeper or sportsman has, or professes to have, some never-failing nostrum or other. Believe me, this is all stuff. There have been, are, and ever will be, cases incurable; but I will venture to say, that ninety-nine out of a hundred who know anything of the subject will admit that these remedies contain some one or more of the following medicines, all of which are of value: – Epsom Salts, Calomel, Jalap, Tartar Emetic, as purgatives or vomits; Antimony, Nitre, James' Powder, Ipecacuanha, as sudorifics, diaphoretics, or febrifuges. From these medicines, the most used, it is evident to see what tendency the course of treatment is designed to have, and when it fails, extra means must be employed till that is effected. Here it is that study, practice, and an intimate knowledge of medicines and their combinations prove of great advantage. At this stage more dogs are lost for want of knowledge what next to do than in any other way; for they are either getting worse or better, never standing still, and each day's illness tells much against the recovery, from the great emaciation and weakness which commences from the first, and keeps increasing daily. Never was there a more appropriate quotation than "Opus est consulto, sed ubi consulueris mature facto." It were idle to speculate on the origin of the disease. Suffice for us that we have it, and that we consider it an affection of the mucous membrane, solely, in the earlier stages, but ultimately combining itself with general mucous affections. But it will not be foreign to our purpose to state several influences which are supposed, if not actually to cause, at all events, greatly to increase its virulence. They are these: —Low Diet, Dirt, Confinement in close, unhealthy, damp kennels, too great a quantity of raw, or even boiled flesh, too little exercise, sudden changes in the atmosphere, and contagion. It cannot be called endemic, since it exists everywhere. Neither is it exactly an epidemic, though some years it does assume that form, while at other times it does not.

Bleeding we see recommended in the Field Sports. Some practitioners are very fond of the lancet. We confess quite a contrary penchant, and hold that bleeding is seldom or ever justifiable, except in cases of violent inflammations.

In distemper, we would not draw blood, once in a hundred times; for the usual course of the disease is so enervating, that in ordinary circumstances nature is reduced far more than agreeable; and as purgatives must be used under any circumstances, they will in general be sufficient to reduce any fever. We will now mention the ordinary symptoms whence we determine this complaint. Lowness of spirit, drowsiness, dimness of the eyes, staring of the coat, loss of appetite, may be noticed, and frequently disregarded. Here we will remark that a mild dose of Epsom salts, according to age – vide prescriptions at the end, No. one, – will suffice. In a day or two, however, if neglected, sometimes a running at the nose will be seen; or the ears and feet will be cold, while the head and body will be feverish; the nose will be hard, dry, and cracked. By degrees, if neglected, the nose will discharge a thick purulent matter, the belly become hotter and distended, the dog will lie full stretch, belly to the ground, the hind legs begin to fail. He may also have spasmodic and convulsive twitchings, giddiness, foaming at the mouth, epileptic fits. Now he will ravenously eat anything cold, drink any quantity of water.

FIRST CASE

Three Setter pups, two to three months old. Appearance, &c. – Slight drowsiness, dimness of eyes, staring of coat, fæces hard. Gave two teaspoonfuls No. one, and repeated next day. Intermitted a day. Repeated dose to make sure. All well.

SECOND CASE

Three Setter puppies, same age at the same time.– Symptoms same, and also heat in body and head; coldness of extremities; bodies inclined to hardness; fæces dark and irregular. Gave four teaspoonfuls No. one. Next morning, if anything worse, belly still hard and swelling, gave each half a grain of Calomel, half a grain of Tartar Emetic. After an hour, no vomit having been attained, repeated the dose. At night gave each a pill – Antimony, two grains, Nitre, ten grains, Ipecacuanha, three grains.

Third day.– Saw pups about eight a. m. One had had a fit, another had one while we were present, and the third seemed likely to have one. Its eyes looked wild; it was unnaturally brisk, and running about; the nose discharged more freely, but not yet any foul matter. Gave all three Calomel and Tartar Emetic as before, and repeated, it not having produced any effect. Between the doses, the two had each a fit, and several, we may as well mention, through the day, the earlier ones being the most severe. About one hour after the vomit, gave each one tablespoonful Castor oil. Fed them with bread and milk. At night gave pill to each – Antimony, three grains, Nitre, ten grains, Ipecacuanha, two grains. Next morning two pups were better. Gave them No. one, two teaspoonfuls, pill as before, night and morning, for two days. No. one the third day. Sent them to kennel. The third of this lot we found not to have had fits; but his bowels were hard, and his secretions black and improper. Gave him Calomel and Tartar Emetic as before, with No. one, usual dose, and pills as above. Gradually he got weaker and weaker, and at last he died. The error here was undoubtedly in not increasing the calomel, and leaving out emetic, so as to endeavor to alter the secretions. A pill, for instance, in this form, would have better met the case. Calomel, one grain, Antimony, two grains, Nitre, five grains, followed up in three hours by one teaspoonful No. two.

THIRD CASE

Two Setter pups, same age as the last.– Case very bad. Fits had taken place more than once. Bodies hard, tumid head and belly hot, evidently much pain in body; ears and feet icy cold; nose hard and thick, pus in it; fæces not noticed. Gave instantly, vomit as before; Calomel and Tartar Emetic, half a grain. Repeated in one hour, not having operated. Half an hour after this had taken place, gave two teaspoonfuls No. two to each. This purged very quickly. One of the puppies appeared to be in much pain. Gave it a saltspoonful of mustard in a little milk. Fits constantly occurring, with intervals of one or two hours, repeated the mustard, and gave Spirits of Hartshorn, six drops, Camphor water, sixty drops, Sweet Spirits Nitre, twenty drops, Laudanum, six drops. Repeated this dose in six hours' time. Kept them all night by the kitchen stove. Slightly better next morning. Gave pill – Antimony, three grains, Calomel, one grain, Nitre, ten grains. Three hours after, two teaspoonfuls No. two. Fits had ceased before night. Gave pill – Antimony, two grains, Ipecacuanha, three grains, Nitre, ten grains, each night and next morning. Next day improvement visible. Wildness of the eye abated; fever in body and coldness of extremities much diminished: secretions, however, still irregular; nose dry and hard. At night gave pill – Ipecacuanha, three grains, Nitre, ten grains, Ginger Essence, five drops. Next morning gave two teaspoonfuls No. two. At night, half teaspoonful diluted Quinine Mixture. Next day gave Quinine twice. Day after, two teaspoonfuls No. one. Sent well to kennel. These were the worst cases of epileptic fits we ever saw. The pair could not have had less than twenty fits each, which lasted from a quarter to half an hour, during which they uttered most piercing howlings.

FOURTH CASE

Pointer puppy ten months old.– Brought in from kennel: food chiefly raw flesh. Condition high. Appearance – Eyes very dull; drowsy; nose hard, dry, with thick mucous effusion; evacuations very offensive. Should consider this the putrid type. Gave half an ounce of salts in warm water. Two days after, gave ten grains Compound Powder of Ipecacuanha. No better: nose running a thick, heavy matter; fæces very offensive. Two days after giving last medicine, gave four grains Antimonial Powder, night and morning, for two days. Dog died.

Remarks.– This case happened years ago, when we were young. Our treatment was bad from the commencement, but the case was a vile one also. The following formulæ would have been more befitting: – Calomel, half a grain, Tartar Emetic, half a grain, repeated with intermissions of an hour, till a vomit was secured. Wineglassful of No. two in an hour afterwards. At night, Antimony, four grains, Nitre, ten grains, repeated next morning. If secretions then offensive, Calomel, two grains, followed by wineglass No. two, in three hours. Then use Antimony, Nitre, and Ipecacuanha, more or less, according as you wish to act on the skin, or on the lungs or kidneys. If the cough is bad, increase the Ipecacuanha. If fever prevails, add to the Antimony. Nitre acts on the bladder.

FIFTH CASE

A Terrier bitch in very low condition, pups having been lately weaned. Age, two or three years.– Symptoms very mild. Gave half an ounce of salts, and two days after, ten grains Ipecacuanha, followed up by four grains Antimonial Powder, for two days. Results: bitch was cured of distemper, but so dreadfully weak, could not feed itself. Gave one teaspoonful of Huxam's Tincture of Bark, three times a day. Hand-fed her frequently with rich beef soup, milk, and bread. After a very hard fight, brought her round.

Remarks.– Could not have done better much, except would have given a combination of Antimony, Ipecacuanha, and Nitre at first, i.e. after purging with salts. Got great credit at the time for the cure, more deserved for nursing well.

From these cases you will be able to see, that for a simple purgative we prefer salts, as being a very cooling dose, and suiting a dog's constitution well. In the earlier stages, it sometimes effects a cure. Where there is a discharge of the nose, you must, after purging, work on the lungs. Where there is fever, you must double your purging, i.e. clean them out front and rear as quickly as possible. Where to this is added a visible disorganization of the secretions, you ought to call in Calomel in large doses, one or two grains, repeated, and this you may continue with Antimony, and so at the same time subdue the inflammation of the lungs. In the earlier part of spring and in fall, there is little fear of diarrhœa supervening. A slight attack of it will not be of much consequence provided you take care to keep it well in hand. Opium must be used with great caution; it rather tends to epileptic fits, which, by the way, we consider to result from an almost stoppage of the bowels. Compound Powder of Chalk, Quinine Mixture, Rhubarb, Catechu, will generally be sufficient.

In the Field Sports is the following receipt, and as we have invariably found Blaine and Youatt's horse and dog receipts the most reliable, we quote it. It is new to us, and so is a violent case of diarrhœa, for that matter.

℞ Magnesia, one drachm; powdered Alum, two scruples; Powdered Calumba,¹ one drachm; P. Gum Arabic, two drachms. Mix with six ounces boiled starch, and give a dessert or table spoonful every four or six hours, pro re natâ.

CASE

We will now suppose a case, for our practice of late years has been confined to young puppies. Ears and feet cold; body and head very hot; body hard and distended; nose hard, dry, and almost stopped up with thick matter; dry, husky cough; fæces, hard; pulse rapid, evidencing much fever. Give instantly, Calomel and Tartar Emetic, half a grain each, repeating it with intermissions of an hour, till you get a vomit. One hour after, give wine glass No. two. Twelve hours after, if fever has not abated, give three grains Calomel, followed in three hours by wine glass of No. two. If the next day you find any fever still lingering, give Calomel, three grains, as before, Antimonial Powder, eight grains. This will, with, in three hours, the usual quantity of No. two, be pretty sure to be successful. You must now address yourself to the cold and other symptoms; and you may give large doses of Ipecacuanha and Nitre. Keep the bowels open, but avoid active purging, except in cases of fever. If you find at any time the body getting hard and distended, administer the emetic. Let the dog out into the air whenever it is fine and warm, keep his nose well cleaned out, and change his bed daily. Encourage him to drink fresh water, if he will.

The receipts alluded to in the previous pages are as follows: —

No. 1.—For young pups up to six months old.– Of Epsom salts, take two ounces; of water, one quart. Mix well, and keep close corked.

No. 2.– Eight ounces of Saturated Solution of Epsom salts, in water; thirty drops Sulphuric Acid. Mix well, and cork close.

Antimony is preferable, when there is fever. It is an antiphlogistic. Ipecacuanha, when there is much debility. The last also affects the lungs, and is more efficient in removing cold.

Half an ounce of salts is a fair dose for a dog from nine months to any age. No. 2 is particularly recommended, whenever an early action is required. It is essentially short, sharp and decisive.

FORM OF GAMEBOOK

This will be found as convenient a form as any for recording the season's bag, and I would suggest as a means to accurately determine the number of shots, to put a given number, say 50 or 80 caps, into your cap pocket every day on going out, deducting any miss-fired and wasted ones from the balance left on returning. This will give you an exact idea of your average shootings, which will be found not to exceed three out of five shots. In the column of remarks you can state your companion, quantity of game seen, &c.; in fact, any point worthy of notice, and to which afterwards you can refer. The writer's book dates back to 1845, and records every head of game killed while he was out, by his own, as also his friend's gun, remarks on the weather, curious ornithological observations, &c.

DOGS,
AND THEIR MANAGEMENT;

PREFACE

In the following pages is laid before the public the result of several years' study. The Author hopes to be able, ultimately, to perfect a system of treatment which shall change only with the progress of the science, of which it can be no more than an offshoot. Saying this, the writer cannot be accused of self-glorification, since there is in the field no living author over whom he might appear to triumph.

The book was also written with the hope of inducing the gentlemen of the Author's profession to study more carefully the Pathology of the Dog. This is at present not properly taught, nor is it rightly understood by the Veterinarians who profess to alleviate canine afflictions. Of all the persons who accept such offices, there is but one who, to the Author's knowledge, devotes the time, attention, or care which disease in every shape demands; and the individual thus honorably distinguished, is Mr. Gowing of Camden Town.

GENERAL REMARKS

There is no animal so widely distributed as the dog. The like assertion could not be made of any other domesticated creature. In countries subjected to the extremes of heat or cold, in the centre of Africa, and at the Northern Pole, the horse is absent; but wherever man is able to exist, there, in some shape or other, the dog is represented. Various have been the speculations as to its original. There is no animal in any way approaching in outward appearance to the Canine Species (properly so called), but has been assumed to be the original parent of the family. Some have even fancied the fox was father to all the dogs that trot by the side of man; but this idea seems too preposterous to be maintained. Others, with more reason, have supposed the prototype of the dog was discovered in the wolf. There are, however, many differences to reconcile before this hypothesis can be received. The formation of the two animals is distinct, – their anatomy presents positive differences, – their time of breeding does not agree, – their habits are opposite, and their outward and inward character is entirely dissimilar. The above engraving is the portrait of the wolf. Is the reader in any danger of mistaking it for that of a dog?

Thus the apparent separation of the two species appears to be so wide, that a child could point it out, and none but a philosopher could confound it. Others, again, have gone to warmer climates for the founder of the kind, which they have, to their own satisfaction, discovered in the jackal: but there are very many obstacles to be surmounted, before this supposition can be acknowledged. In the first place, although the dog is to be found in warm climates, he thrives least in those to which the jackal is entirely confined. Then all that has been urged against the fancy which conceived the prototype of the dog was to be found in the wolf, applies with even greater force to the jackal. However, to settle the dispute, we here give the likeness of the beast, and leave to the reader to point out the particular breed of dogs to which it belongs.

Beyond the circumstance of the habitats of the animals being distinct, is the well-known fact that all domesticated animals have a disposition to return to their original formation; but who ever heard of a dog, however neglected, or however wild, becoming either a wolf or a jackal?

The dog is spread all over the world, and not only is the animal thus widely distributed over the face of the earth, but there is no creature that is permitted with such perfect safety to the human race to have such continual and intimate intercourse with mankind. It is found in every abode: the palace, the warehouse, the mansion, and the cottage, equally afford it shelter. No condition of life is there with which the dog is not connected. The playmate of the infant, the favorite of the woman, the servant of the man, and the companion of the aged, it is seen in and around every home.

Thus brought into intimate connexion with the human race, and continually subject to observation, it is not a little strange that the dog should be universally misunderstood. There is no quadruped which is more abused; whether treated kindly or otherwise, the dog is equally made to suffer; and probably the consequences of over indulgence are more cruel in their result than is the opposite course of treatment. The health of the beast is perhaps best preserved when neglect deprives it of man's attention; then it may suffer from want, but it escapes many of the diseases which caprice or ignorance entail upon the generality of the tribe. There exists no creature more liable to disorder, and in which disease is prone to assume a more virulent or a more complicated form. To minister to its afflictions, therefore, demands no inconsiderable skill; and it becomes the more difficult to alleviate them, since canine pathology is not fully comprehended, nor the action of the various medicines upon the poor beast clearly understood; yet there are few persons who in their own estimation are not able to vanquish the many diseases to which the dog is liable. About every stable are to be met crowds of uneducated loiterers, possessors of recipes and owners of specifics, eager to advise and confident of success. I seldom send a diseased dog into the park for exercise, that my servant does not return to me with messages which strangers have volunteered how to cure the animal. I hear of medicines that never fail, and of processes that always afford relief. Persons often of the upper rank honor me with secret communications which in their opinion are of inestimable value; ladies frequently entreat me to try particular nostrums, and sportsmen not seldom command me to do things which I am obliged to decline. In fact, the man who shall attempt to treat the diseases of the dog, will have no little annoyance to surmount. He will soon discover that science unfortunately can afford him but partial help, while prejudice on every side increases the difficulties with which he will have to contend.

Happily, however, the majority of pretended cures are harmless. A roll of sulphur in the animal's water may be permitted, since it amuses the proprietor while it does not injure his dog. Some of these domestic recipes, nevertheless, are far from harmless, and they are the more to be deprecated, because those which most people would imagine to be safe are the very ones which are attended with the greatest danger. Common salt is a poison to the dog; tobacco is the source of many a death in the kennel; castor oil often does the ill which months of care are needed to efface, even if the life be not destroyed. In the majority of cases vomits are far from beneficial; bleeding is very seldom required, and the warm bath has sealed the doom of innumerable animals.

The foregoing observations will have informed the reader of the reasons that prompt the publication of the present work, which is put forth only as a step towards the point the author does not yet pretend to have fully attained. The study of years will be required to perfect that which is now commenced, and further experience will probably demand the retraction of many of the opinions herein advanced. The reader will understand, the author in the present work asserts only that which he now believes. It must not be imagined, however positive may read the language in which his sentiments are expressed, that the writer is pledged to uphold any of the conclusions at which he may have arrived; knowledge is in its nature progressive, and canine pathology is not yet clearly made out. The advantages which accompany the study of anatomy, physiology, and therapeutics have yet to be more largely applied to the diseases of the dog, and until this has been accomplished, science, not reposing upon truth, will be constantly subjected to change. The present work, therefore, will be accepted only as a contribution to veterinary literature, and its contents will be viewed as doing nothing more than declaring the temporary convictions of one, who, desirous of truth, does not conceal that his mind is oppressed by many doubts.

In the following pages advantage will be freely taken of the labours of those authors who have written upon the subject; nor must it be supposed, because the writer may feel himself obliged to dissent from, he therefore undervalues the genius of Blaine or Youatt. Before Blaine collected and arranged the knowledge which existed concerning the diseases of the dog, canine pathology, as a separate or distinct branch of veterinary science, hardly existed. The task he accomplished; but if after the lapse of years some of his opinions are found to be unsound, and some of his statements discovered to require correction, these circumstances may be regarded as the natural consequences of progression, while they in no way deteriorate from the honor due to his name. Youatt enlarged and softened the teaching of his master, and by the liberality of his communications, and the gentleness of his example, improved and adorned the science to which he was attached. To others than these two great men I have no obligations to acknowledge. For their memories I take the opportunity of expressing the highest respect, and confess that to their instruction is fairly due any novelty which the present pages may contain; since but for those advantages their teaching afforded, it is more than doubtful if I had perceived the facts herein made known.

Before any mention is made of the diseases of the dog, it will be proper to take some notice of the temperament of the animal, as without regarding this the best selected medicines, or the most assiduous attention, may be of no avail. Any one who will observe the animal will soon be made aware of its excessive irritability. The nervous system in this creature is largely developed, and, exerting an influence over all its actions, gives character to the beast. The brain of the dog is seldom in repose, for even when asleep the twitching of the legs and the suppressed sounds which it emits inform us that it is dreaming. No animal is more actuated by the power of imagination. Who is there that has not seen the dog mistake objects during the dusk of the evening? Delirium usually precedes its death, and nervous excitability is the common accompaniment of most of its disorders. To diseases of a cerebral or spinal character it is more liable than is any other domesticated animal. Its very bark is symbolical of its temperament, and its mode of attack energetically declares the excitability of its nature. The most fearful of all the diseases to which it is exposed (rabies), is essentially of a nervous character, and there are few of its disorders which do not terminate with symptoms indicative of cranial disturbance. This tendency to cerebral affections will, if properly considered, suggest those casual and appropriate acts which the dog in affliction may require, and which it would be impossible for any author fully to describe. Gentleness should at all times be practised; but to be truly gentle the reader must understand it is imperative to be firm. Hesitation, to an irritable being, is, or soon becomes, positive torture.

He who would attend upon the dog must be able to command his feeling, and, whatever fear he may be conscious of, he must have power to conceal his emotion. The hand slowly and cautiously advanced, to be hastily retracted, is nearly certain to be bitten. Whatever therefore is attempted should be done with at least the appearance of confidence, and the determination of the man will, in the generality of cases, check the disposition of the beast. There should be no wrestling or fighting. The practitioner should so prepare his acts as to prevent the dog in the first instance from effectually resisting, and the animal mastered at the commencement is usually afterwards submissive. If, however, from any cause, the primary attempt should not be effective, the attendant, rather than provoke a contest which can be productive of no beneficial result, should for a brief period retire, and after a little time he may with better success renew his purpose.

Strange dogs are not easily examined in their own homes, especially if they be favorites and their indulgent owners are present. Like spoiled children, the beasts seem to be aware of all the advantages which the affections of their master give to their humors. They will assume so much, and play such antics, as renders it impossible to arrive at any just conclusion as to the actual state of their health. Dogs in fact are great impostors, and he who has had much to do with them soon learns how cunningly the pampered "toy" of the drawing-room can "sham." For deception, consequently, it is necessary to be prepared, and practice quickly teaches us to distinguish between what is real and that which is assumed. The exertion, however, required to feign disturbs the system, and the struggle which always accompanies the act renders it frequently impossible to make the necessary observation with requisite nicety. Petted dogs are, therefore, best examined away from their homes, and in the absence of any one who has been in the habit of caressing them. Frequently I have found it of no avail to attempt the examination of these creatures at the residences of their owners; but the same animals brought to my surgery have, without a struggle, allowed me to take what liberties I pleased. I usually carry such dogs into a room by myself, and commence by quickly but gently lifting them off their legs and throwing them upon their backs. This appears to take the creatures by surprise, and a little assurance soon allays any fear which the action may have excited. The dog seldom after resists, but permits itself to be freely handled. Should, however, any disposition to bite be exhibited, the hand ought immediately to grasp the throat, nor should the hold be relinquished until the creature is fully convinced of the inutility of its malice, and thoroughly assured that no injury is intended towards it. A few kind words, and the absence of anything approaching to severity, will generally accomplish the latter object in a short period, and confidence being gained, the brute seldom violates the contract.

Dogs are intelligent and honorable creatures, and no man will have reason to regret who teaches himself to trust in their better qualities. I have hitherto, in a great measure, escaped their teeth, and being slow and infirm, my good fortune certainly cannot be attributed to my activity. Kindness and consideration work upon animals; nor do I believe there are many of the lower creatures that will not appreciate such appeals. It is better, therefore, to work upon the sympathetic nature of the brute, than to compete with it in strength, or endeavor to outvie it in agility. Manual dexterity will often fail, and is seldom employed save when danger is present. Mental supremacy appealing to the source of action ensures safety, by subduing, not the resistance, but the desire to resist.

It is easy to ascertain when the dog has regained that tranquillity which would allow of its being trusted with security. The eye need alone be consulted, and a little observation will speedily instruct any one to read its meaning correctly. When the creature is irritated, the pupil invariably dilates, and by singly marking this circumstance, the temper of the beast may be correctly ascertained. Nor should caution be discarded until the contracted circle assures that the agitation has passed away.

With the smaller kind of spaniels and the generality of petted animals, the indications of the eye may be depended upon; but with the more robust and less familiarized species it is safest to take some precaution, even, while the sign of sagacity is exhibited. Certain dogs, those of coarse breeds and large size, are exceedingly treacherous, and sometimes are not safe even to their masters. Creatures of this kind are, however, usually as devoid of courage as they are deficient of magnanimity; and by the display of resolution are to be readily subdued.

When, however, really sick, there are few dogs which may not be approached. Under such circumstances, the utmost gentleness should be employed. The stranger should advance quietly, and not bustle rudely up to the animal. He should speak to it in accents of commiseration, which will be better comprehended than the majority of reasonable beings may be willing to admit.

The hand after a little while should be quietly offered to the dog to smell, and that ceremony being ended, the pulse may be taken, or any other necessary observation made, without dread of danger. Every consideration, however, ought to be given to the condition of the beast. No violence on any account should be indulged; it is better to be ignorant of symptoms than to aggravate the disorder by attempting to ascertain their existence. If the brain should be affected, or the nervous system sympathetically involved, silence is absolutely imperative. No chirping or loud talking ought under such circumstances to be allowed, and the animal should not be carried into the light for the purpose of inspecting it. The real condition of the patient, and the extent or nature of its disease, will be best discovered by silently watching the animal for some time, and attentively noting those actions which rarely fail to point out the true seat of the disorder. Consequently manual interference is the less needed, and in numerous instances I have, when the creature has appeared to be particularly sensitive to being handled, trusted to visible indications, and done so with perfect success. The hand certainly can confirm the eye, but the mind, properly directed, can often read sufficient without the aid of a single sense.

Having made the foregoing remarks, which the intelligence of the reader will readily enlarge, it will next be necessary to describe in what way the dog should be examined. Simple as this operation may appear, it is one which few persons properly comprehend; and as upon it everything depends, it will not be out of place to devote a few lines to its explanation.

The dog, in the first place, should be permitted to run about, released from every restraint, or only so far confined as is necessary to prevent his escape from the limits of observation. No attempt should be made to attract the animal's attention, but the practitioner, seating himself in one corner, ought to be perfectly still and silent. The way in which the creature moves; whether it roams about, stands motionless, appears restless or indifferent, avoids the light, seems desirous of companionship, or huddles itself into some place as far as possible removed from inspection; whether it crouches down, curls itself round, sits upon its haunches, turns round and round trying to bite its tail, drags itself along the floor, or lies stretched out either upon its side or belly; in what manner the head is carried, and to what part it is directed; if any particular place is licked, bitten, or scratched; if thirst is great, or the dog by scenting about shows an inclination for food; the nature of the breathing, the expression of the countenance, the appearance of the coat, and the general condition of the body, should all be noted down. When such points have been observed, the animal is addressed by name, and attempts may be made to approach and to caress it; the way in which it responds, submits to, or resents such advances being carefully remarked.

The dog may then be handled. The eyes and their membrane are inspected, to see if the one be dull or moistened by any discharge, and if the other be reddened, pallid, yellow, or discolored.

The ears are next felt around, their edges lifted to discover if any blackened wax or soreness be present in their convolutions, and slightly squeezed to ascertain if any crackling sensation is communicated to the fingers, or sign of pain evinced by the animal.

The nose is now to be remarked. If it be moist or dry; and if dry, whether it is at all encrusted. The back of the hand or side of the cheek should be applied to the part to ascertain its temperature.

The lips should next be raised, and the state of their lining membrane, with the condition of the teeth, observed.

The jaws should then be separated, that the tongue may be seen sufficiently to note its color, and the breath smelt.

The hand should subsequently be passed over the head and along the back, to feel the hair, and discover whether there exist any sore places or tumors concealed beneath it. The coat may now be generally examined, to find whether in any part the covering is thin or deficient. Its firmness should afterwards be tried, and the itchiness of the skin tested by the nails, as well as its thickness and pliancy ascertained between the fingers.

The hand should also be applied to the throat, and carried along the course of the windpipe, feeling for any swelling of the salivary glands, or enlargement of the thyroid. It is next passed to the abdomen, and the inferior part of the cavity is gently pressed upwards, to ascertain if the rectus abdominis muscle be contracted, or the animal shows symptoms of tenderness. The abdomen may subsequently be kneaded between the fingers. The amount of fat should not be unnoticed, nor should the firmness of the muscles pass unobserved.

When all this is accomplished, the dog is laid upon its side or back, and the tail being elevated, the anus is inspected and felt, to see whether it be inflamed or protruded, and to feel if it be indurated or thickened.

The feet are now taken up, and the length and shape of the nails, with the condition of the dew claws, inspected, to see whether they are growing into the flesh, or by their shortness indicate the animal has been accustomed to healthful exercise. The pad and web also receive a glance.

If the animal be a male, the prepuce is first pressed and then withdrawn, to perceive if any discharge be present, or if the lining membrane be inflamed or ulcerated.

Should it be a bitch, the vulva are inspected, to observe if they are moistened by any exudation, or if they are swollen and excited by the touch. They are separated to observe the color of the lining membrane.

The mammæ are then felt, to know if the animal has ever borne pups, or if any of them are hardened. At the same time the parts are squeezed, to discover whether or not they contain milk.

Such is a general description of the manner of proceeding, but there are many possibilities which the above directions, lengthy and minute as they may read, do not include. Such, for instance, as hernia, and disease of the testicle or scrotum. All, however, it would not be necessary to describe at length, and the foregoing instructions will lead the eye to any extraordinary appearances should they exist. The experienced practitioner probably will do less than is here set down, being educated to a promptitude which enables him to leap as it were at once to those parts which deserve his attention. For such the above is not intended; but he who has not made the dog his special study, will certainly find his advantage in going through the whole ceremony; nor will the most experienced practitioner habitually neglect any portion of it, without having cause to lament his inattention. To examine the dog properly, is perhaps even more difficult than to perform the same office upon the horse, and certainly it is a duty which there are few persons qualified to discharge.

Having spoken of the proper manner of examining the animal, before I proceed to describe its diseases, I shall touch upon some of those matters which are essential to its health. It will, however, be understood that I do not here pretend to treat of hounds, which for the most part are well attended to, and fed, exercised, &c., according to the judgment of the individual entrusted with the superintendence of the kennel. Little probably could be written which would materially amend the condition of these creatures; but petted and housed dogs are commonly treated after a fashion with which judgment has nothing to do. Persons are indulgent to their animals, and imagine that they are also kind, when too often they oppose the dictates of their reason to gratify the weakness of their momentary impulses. A little reflection will convince such people that humanity does not consist in the yielding to every expression of desire. The dog, in a state of nature, being carnivorous, and obliged to hunt for its food, in all probability would not feed every day; certainly it would seldom make more than one meal in twenty-four hours. When the prey was caught, it would be torn to pieces, and with the flesh much earth would be swallowed. The animal, however, is now to be regarded as subjected to man; but while so viewing it, nothing will be lost by keeping in sight its primitive habits.

The dog can fast for a great number of days. Abstinence for forty-eight hours seldom injures it; but it is a practice which ought not to be too frequently adopted, as by its repetition the digestion is weakened. One meal, however, is sufficient, in every case, for the twenty-four hours. Animals not worked, but kept as favourites, or allowed only to range at pleasure, should not have any meat, nor be permitted to consume any large quantity of fatty substances. Butter, fat, or grease, soon renders the skin of the dog diseased and its body gross. Milk, fine bread, cakes, or sugar, are better far for children, and can be on the human race bestowed with advantage; while given to the brute they are apt to generate disorders, which a long course of medicine will not in every case eradicate. Beer, wine, or spirits, all of which the dog can be induced to drink, show rather the master's ignorance than the creature's liking. Nice food, or that which a human being would so consider, is in fact not fitted to support the dog in health. It may appear offensive to ladies when they behold their favourites gorge rankly, but Nature has wisely ordained that her numerous children should, by their difference of appetite, consume the produce of earth. The dog, therefore, can enjoy and thrive upon that which man thinks of with disgust; but our reason sees in this circumstance no facts worthy of our exclamation. The animal seeking the provender its Creator formed its appetite to relish, is not necessarily filthy or unclean; but could dogs write books, probably the opinions of these beasts upon many of the made dishes and tit-bits of the fashionable circles, would be opposed to the ideas which delicate epicures entertain concerning such luxurious fare. The spaniel which, bloated with sweets, escapes from the drawing-room to amuse itself with a blackened bone picked from a dung-hill, follows but the inclination of its kind; and while tearing with its teeth the dirt-begrimed morsels, it is, according to its nature, daintily employed. Could we read its thoughts, probably the perverse little pet, even while it is provoking its mistress's horror, is reflecting upon the nasty trash which the human stomach can endure, and upon the tempting relishes which mankind know not, like dogs, how to appreciate. An occasional bone and a little dirt are beneficial to the canine race, while food nicely minced and served on plates is calculated to do harm. Such keep fattens to excess, destroys activity, renders the bowels costive, and causes the teeth to be encrusted with tartar.

A bone is of great service to the animal, which cannot employ a tooth-brush; and the larger it be and the less meat upon it, the better it will prove for little high-fed favorites. A dog in strong health may digest an occasional meal of bones; but the pet has generally a weak and often a diseased stomach, which would be irritated by what would otherwise do it no harm. The animal, nevertheless, true to its instinct, has always an inclination to swallow such substances, provided its teeth can break off a piece of a size fitted for deglutition. Game and chicken-bones, which are readily crushed, should therefore be withheld, for not infrequently is choking caused by pieces sticking in the œsophagus; though more often is vomiting induced by irritation of the stomach, or serious impactment of the posterior intestine ensues upon the feebleness of the digestion.

The bone, therefore, should be large, and on it there should be nothing which the knife can remove. It ought to be thrown upon the earth, and the animal should be allowed to gnaw it at leisure. During the act, a considerable quantity of earth and saliva will be swallowed, and little actual food be added to an already loaded stomach. In all points of view the animal is benefited. The soil is always slightly alkaline, and so is the saliva; any undue acidity is by both in some measure counteracted; but the earth is also of further service. Food too highly or purely nutritive will not support life; but to render it healthy, a certain quantity of indigestible or refuse matter is imperative. The latter portion acts mechanically as a stimulant to the intestines, and hence, gentlemen by choice consume bread in which a portion of the husk is mingled, finding it prevents the costiveness that the baker's "best" induces. Dogs are here very like men, but they require more of the mixture than the human being could bear. The animals, therefore, should not be fed off plates.

The better practice is to take the day's allowance and throw it upon the ground, letting the beast eat it with what addition it may please. Neither should the nature of the food itself be disregarded. Oatmeal or ship-biscuit ought always to be given, if alone the better, else rice upon which gravy has been poured. Meat, when allowed, should be lean, and the coarser the better. Paunch or tripe is excellent food for dogs, and for a continuance I have found nothing agree so well. Horse-flesh or any such filth is never to be allowed; this kind of food being very apt to generate diseases of the skin. Dogs will thrive on liver, but it is too valuable an article of diet for these creatures to be regularly given. When only occasionally administered it has a well-marked laxative property, and on this account will often be of service in rendering needless the use of medicinal agents. In the raw state, if the animal will take it, its action is more powerful; but after it has been boiled it generally is sufficiently operative. The meat, whatever it may be, should, for animals not in work, be boiled, raw flesh being more stimulative than their comparatively idle pursuits demand. Such animals, in fact, may be said to lead sedentary lives, and their diet must be lowered to suit their habits. For the pointer, &c., during the season, raw flesh is actually to be preferred, nor should the quantity be limited. The exertion is great, and the utmost indulgence in this respect will seldom do harm; but my own experience teaches me that the sporting dog is often crippled by being under-fed. It cannot consume too much, neither can that much be too nourishing, especially if the country to be shot over is of a hilly nature. It is one of the prejudices of most men to believe that a feed of oats to the horse, or a meal of flesh to the dog, just before starting, gives strength for the labor which is to be endured. We cannot, however, make strength as beds are made, at any moment, but the invigoration of a living body must be the result of a slow and a long process. On the day of work it is of less consequence what food is given than is the diet which has been allowed the many previous weeks.

Regularity in the hour of feeding should equally be observed; and if this matter be generally attended to, there will be no danger of its being forgotten, since dogs' stomachs are excellent time-keepers, and the brutes are not by any delicacy of feeling restrained from asking. The hour, after a little while, will always for the sake of peace be kept, and the animals will soon learn the rules to which they are subjected.

For home-kept dogs there is no possibility of stating the quantity of food that ought to be allowed. No two animals in this respect are alike. One eats much, and its fellow consumes but little; yet the small feeder in most cases thrives the best even where neither is stinted. The quantity, therefore, cannot be measured. The only rule to be observed is, that there be enough placed before the animal at a stated hour. Let him eat of this till the slackening of the jaws' movement and the raising of the head indicate that hunger has been for the present appeased. So soon as this is remarked the food ought to be withdrawn. On no account should the creature be allowed to gorge to repletion, or eat after its healthy craving has been satisfied. While the dog eats it should therefore be watched; and this custom works well, as the failure of the appetite often gives to the attendant the earliest indication of disease.

The dog that neglects its day's allowance should not be coaxed to feed, but ought to be left alone for some minutes, or until its companions have finished their meal. It should then be examined, and if nothing can be detected, perhaps the abstinence of a day may restore it. Until the proper hour arrives on the following day, nothing ought to be given to the animal, nor should any inclination on its part for food be noticed.

Where eating is concerned, dogs have lively sympathies. The animal which at its own kennel has feasted to satiety, will wake from its digestive slumber to taste anything of which it sees its master partaking. These creatures are so peculiarly sensitive in this respect, that they will do violence to their feelings rather than be left out when eating is going forward. Dogs moreover are most pertinacious beggars, and they soon learn the cunning of the trade. On no account should they be permitted to frequent the kitchen. If properly reared, they will be rigidly honest, but, like the "audacious cats," they offer a ready excuse to dishonest kitchen-maids, who will sometimes do injury by subjecting the animal to undeserved chastisement.

Where the servants are trustworthy this danger will not arise; but good servants mostly have tender hearts, and dogs have a peculiar tact in appealing to female weaknesses. However strict may be the orders, and however sincere may be the disposition to observe them, bits will fall, – scraps will be thrown down, – dishes will be placed upon the ground, and sometimes affection will venture to offer just "the little piece," which no one could call feeding. It is astonishing how much will in this way be picked up, for the dog that lies most before the kitchen fire is generally the fattest, laziest, and at feeding time the best behaved of his company. Consequently no dog should be allowed to enter the kitchen, for their arts in working upon mortal frailty can only be met by insisting on their absence. The dog that is well fed and not crammed, should not refuse bread when it is offered. If this be rejected, while sugar is eagerly snapped up, it will be pretty certain that the animal is either too much indulged, or that its health requires attention.

Some writers recommend pot-liquor for dogs. It is not advisable to use this. The water in which salt meat has been boiled ought never to be employed. Greens are not nutritious, but they often purge; and if the animal will eat them, they can sometimes be given when liver cannot be obtained. Potatoes will, with other substances, agree with animals not required for work, but the rice I have recommended will be found for general purposes the best, and not the most expensive food upon which the animal can be sustained. Persons having lap-dogs will moreover find the keep upon rice, properly seasoned, or soaked in gravy, less liable to render these creatures strong or tainted than the provender which is choicely selected from the joint provided for the family dinner. The warm meat too often presented to these creatures is apt to enfeeble their digestions; for their stomachs are soon deranged, and they never should be allowed to taste any kind of food which is not perfectly cold.

The food for diseased dogs should be prepared with extreme care, and no disregard of cleanliness; in fact, it should in every respect be such as a human being could partake of, provided the ingredients were not repugnant to his taste. Sickness cannot be relieved without trouble, and in many cases an animal requires as much attention as a child. To gain success, neither time, labor, nor expense must be begrudged; but the attendant must be assiduous and the cook skilful. Nothing smoked or burnt, no refuse or tainted flesh, must on any account be made use of. The meat may be coarse, but it should be fresh and wholesome. Dirty saucepans or dishes ought not to be employed; and so very important are these circumstances, that the practitioner who engages in dog practice will often surprise his acquaintances by being seen at market, or busied over the fire. Beef tea is one of the articles which in extreme cases is of great service. Few servants, however, make it properly, and when a dog is concerned there are fewer still who will credit that any pains should be bestowed upon the decoction. I generally either prepare it myself or superintend the person who undertakes that office, and not unfrequently give serious offence by my officiousness; or, spite of studious attention, fail in procuring that which I desire. Still, as in the last extremity food is even of more importance than medicine, my anxiety cannot be conquered by such schooling, and I am therefore content to bear the sneers of those who cannot understand my motives.

To make beef-tea properly, take a pound and a half of coarse, lean beef: that cut from the neck or round is best. The leg does not answer so well, however excellent it may be for soup. The rump steak is good for the purpose, but no better than other and cheaper parts; though I often use it when nothing else can be obtained so well suited for this beverage. Let the flesh be carefully separated from every portion of skin or fat, and chopped as fine as for sausage meat – the smaller the better – it cannot be too minutely minced. Without washing it, put the flesh into a clean saucepan, with a pint of water, and so place it upon the fire that it will be half an hour at least before it boils. When it boils, allow it to remain in that state for ten minutes, and then remove it, pouring off the liquor, which should be set aside to cool. When cold, any fat upon the surface should be removed, and, no salt or seasoning of any kind being added, the beef-tea is fit for use.

To the meat, which has been drained of moisture, the skin and fat may now be added and a pint and a half of water, which should be allowed to boil till it is reduced to a pint. This being set aside and afterwards cleared of fat, will be of some service if used instead of water when the next potion is required; and there is no limitation in the quantity which may be needed.

Besides beef-tea, wheaten flour, oatmeal, arrow-root, starch, biscuit powdered, and ground rice are also to be employed. These are to be mixed with water, or more often with beef-tea, and boiled; but for sick animals the compound should not be made too thick. The ordinary consistence of gruel will be about the proper substance, and a little only should be administered every hour or half-hour, as the case may require. From half a pint to a quart, divided so as to allow of a portion being given at the stated periods, will be sufficient for a large or small animal, the quantity being proportioned to the size. When the creature is so far exhausted that it is no longer willing or able to lap, the nourishment should be administered by means of a tube passed down the throat or into the œsophagus; for if given with a spoon, as the breathing is always disturbed, the consequence may be fatal, from the fluid being drawn into the lungs. The food should always be made fresh every morning; and none left from the previous day ought on any account to be mixed with it, more especially if the weather be at all warm.

These directions may to some appear needlessly particular; but so rapid are the terminations of canine diseases, and so acute are they in their development, that while the tax upon the patience is not likely to be of long duration, the care demanded during their existence must be unremitting.

Exercise is next to food, and if of one dogs generally have too much, of the other few have enough. In towns, if dogs are kept, a chain and collar should always be at hand. The servants should be ordered to take the creatures out whenever they go upon their errands, and an occasional free journey with the master will be a treat which will be the more enjoyed because of the habit thus enforced.

Washing dogs is not a custom deserving of half the consideration which is bestowed upon it. The operation is not so necessary as it is generally imagined. Soap and water make the hair look white; but the coat usually becomes soiled the quicker because of their employment.

The use of alkalies, soda, or potash, in the water, renders the immediate effects more conspicuous; but unfortunately these substances also make the after-consequences more vexatious. They take the sebaceous or unctuous secretion from the coat. The skin is deprived of its natural protector in this animal; the cuticle grows weak and dry. The hair is rendered rough; is prepared to catch the dirt; and not unfrequently the skin itself, by nature striving to counteract the effect of its deprivation, pours forth a secretion that aids in causing it to appear foul. Above all, the warmth, so repeatedly and often inhumanly applied to the entire surface of the body, debilitates the system of the creature, and generates in the long run certain disease, even if by the drying immediate disorder be not engendered. The warm-bath to the dog is peculiarly debilitating, and the heat which the hand of a cook would endure with a sense of comfort, will sometimes cause the dog to faint. Panting is a sign of sensible weakness in this animal, and few of these creatures are washed without exhibiting it. If washing is insisted upon, the water should never be warm, and in cold weather only should the chill be taken off. The soap ought to be of the mildest quality; but the yelk of an egg is much to be preferred, and in its effects is every way more beneficial where the hair, either of man or beast must be cleansed. A small dog will require the yelk of one egg; and a Newfoundland the yelks of a dozen eggs. The yelks are to be separated from the whites and smeared well into the hair. A little water is then to be poured upon the back, and the hand is to be rubbed upon the coat till a lather covers the body, after which the hair may be cleared by copious ablutions. This process is much to be preferred, and the dog dislikes it far less than when soaps are employed. His eyes are not made to smart, or his skin to burn, and if he tastes the substance he does not therefore sicken. Moreover, when the business is ended, even if some portion of the egg should cling to his hair he will not on that account neglect his personal appearance. The coat will be found to look bright, and to remain clean for a longer period than after the adoption of the customary thoughtless process.

Washing, however, is not constantly required, if a dog be kept combed and brushed every morning, and does not reside in a very filthy locality. A little dirt after a walk is easily removed, if it be allowed to dry perfectly, and the hair is then rubbed and picked by the hand of its attendant, when the comb will complete the proceeding. A bath every morning does the generality of dogs good; but it should be cold, and the animal ought not to be punished by having its head submerged. It should be plunged up to the neck, the head being held above the surface. While in the water the coat should be well rubbed with the hand, that every portion of the hair may become thoroughly soaked. This over, no attempt should be made to dry the dog, for that is not by any industry to be perfectly accomplished. Neither ought the dog to be wrapped up, placed before the fire, or suffered to lie about, which it is always by a sense of discomfort induced to do, if not made to move. The animal ought immediately to be started for a scamper, and never allowed to remain quiescent until its activity has driven every trace of moisture from its body. Not until this is thoroughly effected should the creature be brought in-doors, or be suffered to rest for a moment. If healthy it will require little exertion on its attendant's part to make it jump and run about; but some of these little animals have to carry a burthen of fat which no sense of uneasiness can provoke them to move under of their free wills. An active lad with a chain may, in these last cases, be of much use; but he should be told to exercise his charge in some spot open to the master's eye, else the boy may play while the animal shivers.

Some dogs show a great dislike to, strenuously fighting with, the collar and chain; others will exhibit the most piteous distress, by squatting upon their hocks, and whining, while they pant vehemently, and look imploringly up to the face of their leader. The first are probably not aware of the intention of the bonds to which they are subjected, and should not be harshly rebuked. The voice ought to assure them, and means be resorted to calculated to allay their fears. Gentleness and firmness will in two or three days render such animals perfectly submissive for ever after. The last kind are rank impostors. No one not familiar with these animals would credit the arts which they can with such excellent effect and apparent genuineness practise to gain their ends. They have been used to be carried, and they prefer riding in the arms of a human being. Their insinuating tricks ought to be rewarded only by laughter, accompanied with an admonition.

Dogs are very intelligent. They understand much more than men choose to give them credit for. Their pride is enormous, and through this feeling they are easily moved. Laughter, when directed against himself, no dog can endure, and the slightest reprimand is always answered by an immediate change of aspect. Rather than have their dignity offended, dogs will quickly become honest, especially when deceit is experienced to be of no avail. People who are physiognomists may detect this sentiment impressed upon the countenance. Upon the next page is a portrait of a Mastiff. Mark the absolute Asiatic dignity, only outwardly slurred over by a heedlessness of behaviour. Does it not seem as though the creature, through very pride reposing upon strength, was above forms? Who could think of laughing at such gravity? Would it not be like ridiculing nature to insult one who has such outward claims to our respect?

Sporting dogs will always take the exercise that is beneficial, and for such the cold bath is much to be recommended. Only in skin diseases should the tepid bath be resorted to. It is of much service when the skin is hot and inflamed, but after it, exercise ought not to be neglected. For healthy animals the hot or warm bath should never be employed; but the sea is frequently as beneficial to dogs as to their owners; only always bearing in mind that the head should be preserved dry.

Vermin often are very troublesome to dogs, and I have known these animals destroyed because their owners were ignorant of the process by which the annoyance might have been readily conquered. There are many powerful drugs recommended by different writers to effect this end; but though all of them are sufficiently potent to annihilate the parasite, most of them are also strong enough to kill the dog. When fleas are numerous, the dog must be taken from the place where it has been accustomed to sleep. The bed must be entirely removed, and the kennel sluiced – not merely washed – with boiling water, after which it ought to be painted over with spirits of turpentine. The dog itself ought to be washed with eggs and water, as before directed; but with the yelk of every egg a teaspoonful of spirits of turpentine should be blended. After this, the animal should have pine shavings to sleep upon, and if these are frequently renewed, the annoyance will seldom be again complained of. As, however, exceptional cases will always start up, should the tribe not be entirely dispersed, the washing must be repeated; or if from want of time or other cause it be inconvenient to renew that operation, a little powdered camphor rubbed into the coat will mostly abate and often eradicate the nuisance.

Lice often cover the body of the dog, and especially crowd upon its head around the eyes and lips. There need be no dread of their presence, since these vermin will not live upon the human being, though similar to the kind which will. When they are perceived, the dog should be carried into some place in which grease stains are not of much consequence. It ought then to be covered with castor oil till the hair is completely saturated. In this state it should be allowed to remain at least twelve hours, at the expiration of which time the oil may be removed with yelk of eggs and water: only an additional number of eggs will be required. As to the quantity of castor oil which may be necessary, a moderate-sized dog with a long coat will require about a pound, and a large Newfoundland four times that amount. The process, as might be anticipated, operates upon the bowels; but I have never found it to do so with any dangerous power; on the contrary, the laxative effect is generally in these cases beneficial.

Medicine to the dog requires to be administered with caution. The nostrums which are so particularly recommended by grooms and farriers ought never to be made use of. The veterinary surgeon is less likely to commit error; but there are, however, few of the profession who devote attention to the dog with the zeal which the comprehension of its diseases and their treatment demand. Huntsmen and gamekeepers are generally from practical experience not altogether inapt dog doctors, where the larger and more robust kind of animal is to be treated, but for the smaller and petted species these persons ought not to be consulted. Many of their receipts are harsh – not a few of them inoperative – and some even dangerous; while all for the most part are pushed down at random, or in total ignorance of any effect the agents employed may induce beyond the intended one of doing good or working a certain cure. Nevertheless, with the kind of animals generally entrusted to their charge, such persons are so far successful that, in the absence of better advice, they deserve to be consulted for the larger species of dogs. The human physician will also, on occasions, be enabled to prescribe advantageously for the canine race; but not knowing the treatment of the diseases, and the symptoms being too often deceptive, the highest opinions are by no means to be absolutely relied upon.

Dog-doctoring is, in fact, a separate branch of science so intricate as to call for intense study strengthened by constant observation. No one not attached to the animal should attempt to master it, for success in such a case would be hopeless. The annoyances are so great that the patience is continually being tried; and the facts on which reliance can be placed are so few, that he who is content to depend upon the received assertions will never be able to realize his expectation. Nothing is more erroneous than to believe that there is any close analogy between man and the dog in the operation of medicinal substances. Aloes, rhubarb, &c., are not purgatives to the dog; but castor oil, which to the human being is a gentle laxative, to the dog is an active purge; while Epsom salts are a violent hydragogue to the canine patient, producing copious and watery stools. Common salt is in large doses a poison, and in apparent small quantities is so strong an emetic as to be dangerous. Salivation speedily ensues upon the use of minute quantities of mercury, which therefore cannot be considered safe in the hands of the general practitioner. Secale cornutum has little specific action beyond that of inducing vomiting; and strychnia cannot be with security administered, on account of its poisonous operation upon the animal. Other instances, casting more than suspicion upon the inferences which every writer upon Materia Medica draws from the action of drugs given to dogs, could easily be quoted, but they would here be somewhat out of place; and probably sufficient has been said to check a dangerous reliance upon results that admit of no positive deduction.

It is painful to peruse the "experiments" made especially by the French authors. We read that so much of some particular agent caused death to a dog in such a period; but he must be wise indeed who learns anything from statements of this kind. The word dog represents animals of various sizes and very diverse constitutions; therefore no conclusion can be drawn from an assertion that does not embrace every particular. Unfortunately, however, the operators think it no disgrace to their scientific attainments to put forth such loose and idle assertions; nor do they seem to hold it derogatory to their intelligence that they assume to reach a show of certainty by experimentalising upon a creature about which, as their reports bear witness, they literally know nothing. Equally unsatisfactory are the surgical and physiological experiments made upon these creatures. No results deduced from such acts can be of the slightest importance. The anatomy of the dog is not by them generally understood. There is no book upon this subject that is deserving of commendation; and, to instance the ignorance which prevails even in places where a superficial knowledge ought to exist, I will mention but one circumstance.

At the Royal Veterinary College there is a professor of Particular Anatomy, whose duty it is specially to instruct the pupils concerning the dog. The lectures, however, embrace but little, and that little is principally devoted to wandering remarks upon the osseous structure. Of the value of such teaching some opinion may be formed when the skeleton at the College actually exhibits the bones placed in wrong or unnatural situations. After the proof thereby afforded, with what reliance can any sane mind accept the awful declarations of those anatomists who, upon the living bodies of these creatures, have, according to their own accounts, exhibited a nicety and certainty of skill which the profoundest acquaintance with the various structures and parts would still leave incomprehensible? Such reports evidence only the presumptuous folly of individuals – the publication of such records testifies no more than the ignorance of the age.

To give medicine to the Dog often creates more bustle than the magnitude of the creature appears to justify. Moreover, if the parties concerned in the undertaking are not quite up to their business, the animal, which, between its gasping, howling, and struggling, will find time to bite, increases the activity by provoking human exclamations. I have known this species of confusion to have been continued for half an hour; during which work was stopped in a forge, and three brawny smiths joined a veterinary surgeon's efforts to give a pill to a little spaniel that could not have weighed above eight pounds. The dog was beaten and hands were bitten, but after all no pill was swallowed. The result was the natural consequence of the manner of proceeding. No man should contend with an animal, and especially with a dog, whose excitement soon renders it incapable of obedience.

With brutes of every kind, if the mastery cannot, by a bold stratagem, be gained at once, it should be only established through the confidence of the animal, which a few acts of kindness will, in the majority of cases, easily win. I have had dogs brought to me which seemed disposed rather to part with life than permit their jaws to be handled. The poor beasts had been harshly used by the persons who had previously undertaken to treat them. These creatures have remained with me, and in a little time have grown so submissive that my shop-boy could with ease give any kind of physic which I ordered to be prepared. Firmness and kindness were the only stratagems I employed. I took care never to give the dog a chance of mastery, but while ensuring my victory, I was careful that the conquest caused no sense of pain. A few pats, with a kind word, and an occasional reward in the shape of a bit of meat, induced the creature more willingly to submit when the next dose came round.

A small dog should be taken into the lap, the person who is to give the physic being seated. If the animal has learned to fight with its claws, an assistant must kneel at the side of the chair and tightly hold them when the dog has been cast upon its back. The left hand is then made to grasp the skull, the thumb and fore finger being pressed against the cheeks so as to force them between the posterior molar teeth. A firm hold of the head will thus be gained, and the jaws are prevented from being closed by the pain which every effort to shut the mouth produces. No time should be lost, but the pill ought to be dropped as far as possible into the mouth, and with the finger of the right hand it ought to be pushed the entire length down the throat. This will not inconvenience the dog. The epiglottis is of such a size that the finger does not excite a desire to vomit; and the pharynx and œsophagus are so lax that the passage presents no obstruction.

When the finger is withdrawn, the jaws ought to be clapped together, and the attention of the creature diverted. The tongue being protruded to lick the nose and lips will certify that the substance has been swallowed, and after a caress or two the dog may be released. Large brutes, however, are not thus easily mastered. Creatures of this description must be cheated, and they fortunately are not so naturally suspicious as those of the smaller kind. For months I have thus deceived a huge, ferocious, but noble guardian of a yard, who appeared incapable of conceiving that deception was being practised. The dog bolts its food, and, unless the piece be of unusual size, it is rarely masticated. The more tempting the morsel, the more eagerly is it gorged; and a bit of juicy or fat meat, cut so as to contain and cover the pill, ensures its being swallowed. Medicine, however, which in this manner is to be administered, ought to be perfectly devoid of smell, or for a certainty the trick will be discovered. Indeed, there are but few drugs possessed of odour which can be long used in dog practice, and even those that are endowed with much taste cannot be continuously employed. When the dog is very ill, the intelligent beast becomes conscious of its danger, and almost any kind or any form of medicine will be accepted. There is no difficulty generally then; but in chronic diseases, that only vex the temper and scarcely lower the spirit, the ingenuity will mostly need to be exerted. Some medicines, however, can be dissolved in the water; others may be smeared upon the food; and fortunately the majority of those drugs appropriate to slow and inveterate disorders admit of being thus exhibited. Fluids are perhaps more readily than solids given to dogs, by the generality of inexperienced persons. To administer liquids, the jaws should not be forced open and the bottle emptied into the mouth, as when this method is pursued the greater portion will be lost. The animal's head being gently raised, the corner of the mouth should be drawn aside, so as to pull the cheek from the teeth. A kind of funnel will thus be formed, and into this a quantity of the medicine equal to its capacity should be poured. After a little while the fluid will, by its own gravity, trickle into the pharynx, and oblige the dog, however unwilling it may be, to swallow. A second portion should then be given in the like way, and thus, little by little, till the full dose is consumed. Often dogs treated in this fashion swallow a draught very expeditiously; but others will remain a considerable time before they deglutate. Some, spite of every precaution, will manage to reject the greater part, and others will not waste a drop. The dexterity of the practitioner makes some difference; but no skill can ensure the drink being taken. Patience, however, is here of most avail; but when the mouth is full of fluid, by gently separating the jaws the animal may be caused to deglutate.

Two pieces of tape, one passed behind the canine teeth or tusks of the upper, and the other in like manner upon the lower jaw, have been recommended. The tapes are given to an assistant, who, pulling at them, forces the mouth open, and holds it in that position. In certain cases this may be adopted for pills; indeed every stratagem will be needed to meet the multifarious circumstances that will arise. For ordinary occurrences, however, the practice is not to be commended, and should never be embraced when drinks have to be given: the animal cannot swallow while the jaws are held asunder; but for solids this plan answers better. There are several objections, however, to be urged against its constant use. The operation is violent, and the restraint it necessitates not alone prevents the poor animal deglutating fluids, but also terrifies the brute, who, on the next occasion, naturally is the more resistful. Difficulties, therefore, increase, and the dog generally is not long before it learns to baffle the attempt to confine it. Moreover, unless the assistant be very well up to his business, his steadiness cannot be depended upon, and the hand often is wounded by the teeth of the patient.

I therefore do not, as a general custom, resort to the tapes, and I advise others only to employ them upon necessity. There are some creatures so artful and so resolute that any attempt to give them physic is certain to be frustrated. These are mostly small dogs that have been tutored by severity, and such animals are not subdued by any amount of suffering. The poor beasts fear the doctor more than the disease; and, though gentle in their dispositions, are resolute in their resistance. For such cases I employ the stomach pump, and by its aid introduce a dose of sulphate of magnesia; for in general it is only purgatives that require to be given in bulk. Other drugs may be either disguised, or exhibited by injection. Enemata are of great service to this animal, and I make much use of them. In their exhibition, care should always be taken to introduce the pipe without any force; having previously greased the tube to ensure its passing the more readily. While the instrument is in the rectum the dog should be firmly held, else, in its struggles, the intestine may be injured. The fluid should be gently thrown up, even when a large quantity is employed. For those injections, however, which it is desirable to have retained, from an ounce to a quarter of a pound will be sufficient. Warm water ought not to be used as an injection, since it washes away the mucus, renders the intestinal surface harsh, and prevents the passage of the fœces. Linseed tea or any mucilaginous fluid answers the purpose better, and a solution of soap is excellent in many cases, when only a laxative effect is desired. The form, however, as will in the course of this work be explained, must be repeatedly varied, since this agent may be rendered medicinal or nutritive.

Purgatives are most valuable, but are not free from danger. The digestive canal of the dog is peculiarly irritable, and no less sensitive to the action of medicine. There are few diseases in which the stomach and intestines are not involved, and very many in which purgatives are directly contra-indicated. No one should get into the habit of thrusting physic of this nature down the throats of his animals; and sportsmen may rest assured that, to the dog at all events, preparatory doses are not necessary to condition. Those, however, who persist in using such stuffs will do well not to employ the compounds in general use. The mixture of poppies, buckthorn, and castor oil is a filthy mess; and I do not understand the principles upon which the abomination is based. A better and more cleanly mixture is thus made: —

A little pounded sugar added to this will often render it palatable, which, being of a fluid consistency, is without difficulty exhibited. The compound, however, flows the more readily if it be slightly warmed, and in winter it even requires to be thus prepared. Sulphate of magnesia I rarely employ; and, as a general purgative, it is not suited to the dog, though in exceptional cases it will be seen I recommend it. Should pills be preferred, the following will be found to answer every purpose: —

This is for one pill, which is a dose for a small dog of seven or eight pounds weight. Three times the quantity would be required for a Newfoundland. It is not very powerful in its action; its effect upon the system being quite as much alterative as laxative. The animal under its operation is evidently nauseated, and refuses food for about twelve hours; at the expiration of which time relief is afforded by a not very copious, but bilious evacuation. It is, however, important that, after the administration of a purgative, the dog should be permitted to remain perfectly quiet; since, if put to exercise, or much excited, the medicine will in all probability be ejected.

Emetics are shamefully abused, being so universally employed by the owners of dogs, and so strenuously recommended by writers upon their treatment, that one might think these agents were held to possess some charmed power over the health of the animal. Lecturers are marvellously fluent upon the subject of the dog's vomiting, which they dwell upon with such delight that their auditors must suppose the act of revulsion in the canine species is a pleasurable performance. Let any one, however, possessed of sense and reason, observe the creature in the act of being sick. The attitude is not characterised by ease; but the body is drawn up preparatory for some unusual effort. The countenance does not bespeak tranquillity; but the face is expressive of inward oppression. The animal's frame is shaken by convulsive spasms, each throe being announced by a deep pectoral sound, and only after this has repeatedly been heard is the stomach able to cast off its contents.

The description denotes nothing calculated to suggest that the organ whose derangement is so marked should be rudely tampered with. It is true the dog can readily be made to vomit. No creature is more easily moved in that way; but in such a circumstance reason should perceive no license to thrust emetics down the animal's throat. The organ which is so readily excited, by the fact asserts its sensibility, and on that very account ought to be the more respected. I have found oftener difficulty to check this tendency than reason to provoke it. Repeatedly are tonics rejected, and only by the reduction of the dose can the dog's stomach be made to retain the medicine. The emetics in common use are, moreover, far too violent. Antimonial wine, from half a teaspoonful to a dessertspoonful, is much preferable to tartar emetic and calomel.

On no account should such doses as Blaine prescribes ever be exhibited. Youatt in his recommendation is much better, but even the amount he orders is too great. A quarter of a grain of tartar emetic in solution is sufficient for a middling sized dog; and four grains of ipecacuanha is equally effective. If in two hours (which rarely happens) no effect is produced, it is better to repeat the dose, and continue even to do so, than to commence with a larger quantity in the first instance. These animals in their constitutions are so various, and the practitioner has so little to guide his judgment, that the utmost caution will not in every instance protect him from self-reproach; and in no case is he warranted in closing his mind against the suggestions of prudence. It is true the primary effects of an emetic are generally gratifying, but the after consequences, if carefully traced, will not be found to be equally satisfactory. Often the purge and the vomit, with which every dabbler commences his treatment of a "dog-case," appear to give relief; but, commonly, when the immediate excitation which their first operation naturally calls forth passes away, debility ensues, and the termination is not in harmony with the beginning. I once was very partial to emetics. I now rarely make use of them, and have no reason to lament my change of practice.

No notice will be bestowed upon those mysterious compounds known as alteratives, sedatives, &c., which are given merely because habit has sanctioned their administration. Names are in medicine dangerous things, and give a currency to error which, to man and beast alike, has proved fatal. Neither will any attempt be made to classify diseases; which custom, though it has some advantages, is likely to mislead, by setting up a system where no positive connexion can be demonstrated. The disorders of the dog in this work will be treated of after no formal plan; but the index must supply that want of arrangement, the absence of pretence to which probably will give offence to regular students.

DISTEMPER

Of all the diseases to which the dog is subject, this one is the most dreaded. Writers have agreed it is the scourge of the canine race. Blaine and Youatt speak of it as capricious and untractable; the French regard it as incurable. The owners of dogs, despairing of benefit from regular means, have for a long time been content to trust in charms and specifics. Folly and cruelty have been embraced to accomplish that which kindness and science appear unequal to perform; and one general feeling seems to be entertained with regard to the distemper – most persons being agreed that the disorder is not to be subdued by medicine, and that its fatality is independent of the best efforts of man to check it.

My experience does not corroborate these various but harmonious accounts and opinions. In my conviction, the disorder is feared only because it is not understood, and is rendered worse by the injudicious attempts to relieve it. I find it tractable, easily mastered, and when submitted to me before the system is exhausted, I am very seldom disappointed by the result of my treatment. It has for some time been my custom to tell those who bring me an animal affected with this complaint, that if my directions are strictly followed, the creature "shall not die." When saying this, I pretend not to have life or death at my command, and the mildest affections will sometimes terminate fatally; but I merely mean to imply, that when proper measures are adopted, distemper is less likely to destroy than the majority of those diseases to which the dog is liable.

Distemper has been hitherto regarded as an inflammatory disorder, which was to be conquered only by antiphlogistic remedies. Bleeding, purging, vomiting, sedatives, blisters, and setons were employed; and the more acute the attack, the more violent were the means resorted to for the purpose of its conquest. Under such treatment I do not wonder at the evil character which the malady has obtained; for in proportion as the efforts made were great, so would be the probability of the disease proving destructive. There can be no doubt that more dogs have been killed for the distemper than would have died from it if nature had been suffered to take her course; and yet there is no disease that more requires help, or rewards the practitioner more largely for the assistance he affords.

The reader is entreated to dismiss from his mind all he may have read, or heard, or thought of this affection. Let the many tales about never-failing receipts, and the only proper modes of treatment, be for a time at all events forgotten, that the author, who undertakes to oppose prejudice and to contradict authority, may at least have a patient hearing. There is no reason to doubt that many cases which have been called distemper have, to all appearance, been saved by each of the reputed methods of cure. A pillet of tobacco, a tea-spoonful of salt, a dose of castor oil, an emetic, rubbing the nose with syrup of buckthorn, &c., &c., or anything that is famed for the purpose, may have often seemed to check the disease; but no one who has been accustomed to depend on these charms can deny he has frequently witnessed their failure. That they should sometimes have seemed to do good is easily explained. In the first place, there are very few persons who know how to recognise the early symptoms of the malady; but it is usual for every young dog that is a little poorly to be pronounced sick with the distemper.

The unfounded belief that all of these animals must have the disease makes every one anticipate its advent, and tempts them to call every ailment by the name suggested by their expectations. Two-thirds, at least, of the cases which are so quickly cured by nostrums and specifics would on inquiry prove to have been mistaken; and as, in the instances where a single dose is depended upon, nature is pretty much left to herself, the chances are that a fair share of the rest would get well of themselves. The recovery, however, could in no way be expedited by that which is credited for its accomplishment; since the little done is mostly calculated to aggravate and not to alleviate the symptoms, while there is no possibility it should eradicate the disorder.

In its character, distemper approaches very near to "continued fever" in the human subject; the chief difference being consequent upon the more delicate constitution and more irritable temperament of the dog, which prevents the two diseases from appearing exactly the same. It consists in a general fever, which produces a morbid excitement of all the mucous membranes. The digestive track is the principal seat of the disease, but of course its presence is most easily recognised at those parts which are most exposed to view. Thus the membrane of the eye, being a comparatively large surface, and by its delicacy well calculated to denote every variation of the system, is usually the first observed, and often the only place inspected. If this be cloudy or watery, the nature of the malady is at once concluded; the membrane of the nose also, though less palpable, is under observation; and if its secretion be copious and opaque, the fact is generally imagined to be established. The alterations, however, exhibited by these membranes are no more than sympathetic derangements, they being continuous with the more important organs; and when proofs are found in the eyes or nose, the disorder is generally confirmed, or has taken hold of the system. Some have supposed the disease originated in the nose, and thence extended to other parts; now I shall not stop here to consider so groundless an hypothesis. It essentially is fever affecting the entire of the mucous surfaces, but especially those of the alimentary canal.

The causes cannot be well ascertained. Contagion has been by the majority of writers supposed to be its principal source, but I cannot say my experience has corroborated that opinion. My own little cur never had the distemper, and yet she lived where the disease was scarcely ever absent. Animals virulently affected were daily brought to me, and not a few were left in my charge. From these she was not kept separate; they were her acquaintances and companions; she played with them, and often by choice shared their beds; and nevertheless she died without exhibiting the disease. I do not generally put those dogs by themselves which are affected with distemper; yet I cannot bring to mind the instance of an animal while under my care having caught the disorder. I doubt whether there is any justice in the general opinion. It would be hard to prove the prevailing notion was a prejudice, yet there can be no doubt that it is much more insisted upon than it deserves to be.

With regard to other causes, I know of none. I have not been able to observe that any circumstance can induce the disease, though at particular ages the animals are predisposed to its exhibition.

During the latter period of dentition – that is, when the second set of incisors are well up, and the permanent tusks are about half-grown, the temporary ones being still retained – is the time when pups are most disposed to display this disorder. I cannot state the precise age, because mouths are not regular in their appearances even as to mouths; but the aspect of the teeth will sufficiently mark the period when an individual may be expected to be attacked. The season certainly, in no little degree, influences the disease. In winter it is not usually seen; in the spring it is more common; in summer is rare, but less so than in winter. During the autumn, however, especially if much rain should fall, it is very frequent, and always more prevalent than at any other periods. Spring and autumn, therefore, are the times when it is to be looked for, but in the latter it is to be anticipated.

When treating of a subject like the present, there would seem to be a disposition to string together a number of words which do duty for information. Cold, wet, bad food, foul air, excessive exertion, fear, &c., are grouped together, and put forth for almost every "ill that flesh is heir to;" but I have to learn that these accepted terms have any connexion with the development of this disorder. Dogs that are starved, neglected, and cruelly tortured – animals that are judiciously fed, properly housed, and sensibly treated – as well as favorites that are crammed, nursed, and humored – all equally are its victims; and those which are most cared for fall most frequently, while those which are least prized more generally survive. If, therefore, privation or exposure be of any importance, the facts seem to infer their tendencies are either to check or mitigate the attack.

Exercise and food, however, do influence the complaint. The dog that is free suffers much less severely than the one that is confined. The animal that never tastes flesh has a much lighter attack than the one which subsists entirely upon meat. This last fact I have often proved. When the distemper has made its appearance, the opportunity for changing the diet has passed away. We have, then, only a choice of dangers. To remove the flesh to which the animal is accustomed is to cause it to pine and to weaken the strength, at a time when vigor is of every importance; whereas to continue the meat is mostly certain death; in this position I generally take away the flesh, for by so doing I give the patient a chance of recovery; and however desperate that chance may be, nevertheless it is to be much preferred to no chance at all.

The symptoms in the very early stage are not well marked or by any means distinguished for their regularity. They may assume almost any form; dulness and loss of appetite, purging, or vomiting, are very frequently the first indications. The more than usual moisture of the eyes, and a short cough, are often the earliest signs that attract attention. In the bitch a desire for copulation, with a disinclination to accept the dog, is to be regarded with suspicion; as is also a display of peevishness and a wish to be undisturbed in full-grown animals. These things denote no more than the derangement of the system; but if, conjoined with them, the inner surface of the lower eyelid should appear to be more red than usual, and the pulse should be increased in number without being materially altered in character – ranging from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty in puppies, and in dogs from one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty-five – the probability of distemper making its appearance is the greater, though even then by no means certain.

The period of the year, however, will also have to be taken into consideration; and inquiry should always be made whether any animals in the immediate neighborhood are known to have exhibited the disorder; because the disease is then proved to be in the locality. At this stage the practitioner is always more or less in the dark; and therefore he contents himself with such measures as he concludes are adapted to the symptoms, and waits for further instructions which nature will speedily develope.

When the disease is established, the animal is sensitive to cold. It seeks warmth, and is constantly shivering; when taken hold of, it is felt to tremble violently, so much so that the pulse cannot be accurately counted. The bowels are generally constipated. A thick purulent discharge flows from the eyes; and the white around the eye, if the upper lid be retracted, will be seen covered with numerous small and bright red vessels, giving to the part the appearance of acute inflammation. The vessels now spoken of are not to be confounded with the veins which are natural to this organ. These last are large, and of a purple hue, while their course is in the direction of the circumference of the cornea. The small vessels, indicative of distemper, are fine, bright in color, and their course is towards the centre, or in a line directly the opposite to that indicated by the veins. They are never present during health, though they are often to be witnessed in other diseases besides that which is here treated of. A glairy mucus, or yellow fluid, moistens the nostrils, and if the ear be applied to the head, the breathing will be discovered to be accompanied with an unusual sound. The cough is often severe and frequent; it is sometimes spasmodic – the fits being almost convulsive, and terminating with the ejection of a small quantity of yellow frothy liquid, which is thrown off by the stomach. The digestion is always impaired, and sickness is not unusual; the matter vomited having an offensive smell, and never being again consumed by the animal, as is generally the case when the creature is in health. The nose is dry and harsh; the coat staring and devoid of gloss: the skin hotter than is customary, and the paws warm. The pulse is perhaps quicker by twenty beats than during the prior stage, but less full – the artery feeling sharp, short, and thin under the finger.

When the symptoms described are apparent, the distemper is easily recognised, but it is not likely to continue stationary for any long period. In the course of a week it generally changes its character, and sometimes appears to subside altogether; the cases in which the disease steadily progresses, becoming day by day more severe, being comparatively rare.

When no abatement is witnessed, the case is not to be despaired of, but it requires to be anxiously watched; for often it will take a sudden turn, sometimes favorable, but more frequently demanding immediate assistance to prevent a fatal termination. The symptoms become aggravated. The eyes are clogged by a thick matter which glues the lids together, especially in the morning. The nostrils are plugged up by an accumulation of tenacious discharge, which becomes encrusted over the lips and nose, and impedes the breathing. The body rapidly wastes, though the appetite may return, and even be voracious. The shivering is constant. The dog seeks repose and is disinclined to move; though at times it may be playful, and in some instances will never exhibit any diminution of spirit. The cough may continue; but it more often ceases, or is only heard at irregular and distant intervals. The animal makes repeated and desperate efforts to expel the accumulated matter from the nose, and uses its paws evidently with an intention to remove the annoyance. Day by day, if not attended to, these signs grow more aggravated; the breath becomes very offensive; ulcers appear on the lips; the eyes become white; the discharge from the nostrils changes its color, and is mingled with blood and scabs, having an offensive odor. The creature at last begins to "yap," or utter short sharp cries. It becomes more weak, till at length it cannot walk, but lies upon its side; the noise being continued for hours, and then ceasing only to be again commenced. Constipation has usually been present, but at last diarrhœa sets in; the fæces have that peculiar smell which in the dog is characteristic of the latest stage of all; and gradually death, without a seeming struggle, closes the scene of suffering.

More frequently – indeed, in the majority of cases – the distemper is hardly well developed before it all at once seems to disappear. This peculiarity in the disorder has no doubt given strength to the general faith in specifics for this disease. The animal suddenly so far recovers, or appears to recover, after having been seriously affected, that the inexperienced naturally conclude the dog is either quite well, or evidently so far cured that the efficacy of the remedy administered is not to be disputed. For two or three weeks this deceptive appearance may continue, and in some cases no return of the symptoms may be witnessed; but in the majority of instances the disorder is only dormant, and again starts up as if it had been strengthened by its treacherous repose. The running from the nose comes back in excessive quantities, and either the bowels are singly inflamed, or with them the brain is involved, and fits or diarrhœa, or both united, speedily terminate in death, to arrest which medicine has seldom the power. The loss is on these occasions rarely attributed to distemper, which is thought to have been subdued; but death is commonly set down to fits, or to poison, or to inflammation of the bowels, or to anything else which the imagination of the proprietor may conceive. Hence we get an insight into the value of a large number, and perhaps into all, of the reputed nostrums; and hence it is the more necessary the reader should be made aware of those indications which denote the virus is not eradicated, but only latent as it were, lurking, to spring with greater certainty upon its victim. No one must conclude the distemper is mastered if the dog continues to lose flesh, or if the animal does not rapidly repair the waste consequent upon the earlier stages of the disorder. This tendency to stand still or decline should be carefully observed, and it will seldom deceive. When it is remarked, or even suspected, let the owner be upon his guard. When the distemper is actually overcome, there is a marked disposition to fatten; indeed, so strong is it at this time that, should it not be evident, there can be no doubt as to the cause, especially if a short and slight attack of the disorder has been known to have occurred a little time before. A warning, equally clear to those who will look for and can read it, is to be obtained from the eyes. These may be bright, and even peculiarly transparent; the face have a more animated expression than it displayed during previous health; but if the eyelids are retracted, the membranes will be found red, and the vessels before observed upon will be seen running over the white of the eye. When these things are present, although the coat may be beautifully smooth, the discharge dried up, the shivering gone, the appetite strong, and the spirits boisterous, still there is in the system the seeds of a disease which at no distant period will reappear in its most dangerous form.

Commonly, after the second stage, there is an abatement of the symptoms, without any actual cessation in the discharges. The dog is concluded to be better, and thought to be doing well, but it will not be long before something to excite alarm is witnessed. The eyes or nerves, or lungs or liver, or stomach or intestines may be attacked; or a pustular eruption, or actual mange, or a disposition in the animal to eat its own flesh, or chorœa, or paralysis may appear, and all of these possible varieties require to be separately dwelt upon.

The eyes lose their transparency, the surface is white and opaque, the sight is impaired, and the lids are nearly constantly closed. One or both of the organs of vision may be thus affected; usually the two are simultaneously affected, but seldom with the like intensity. After a few days, and sometimes at the commencement, a small circular depression is to be seen upon the very centre of the eyeball. It is round, and varies in size from that of a pin's head to that of a small pea, but rarely becomes larger. The depression, if nothing be done to check it, deepens till a little shallow pit is exhibited. At other times the hole grows larger and deeper, till the outer covering of the eye is absorbed, or, in common phrase, is eaten through, and the water escapes: this gives relief. If, however, the animal survives, the eye is often perfectly restored, though very frequently a white speck marks the spot which was ulcerated; or the dog is left with weakened eyes, and has a tendency to cataract, which may ultimately render it blind.

The affection of the lungs is denoted by the dog breathing more quickly, and often making a small plaintive or whistling noise during respiration. Though cough is quite as often absent as present; but if present it is usually severe; the pulse is increased, but small and thready, and the appetite may not be impaired. The animal is, however, disinclined to move, if put down at liberty, it always gets into some place where it hopes to be allowed to remain undisturbed. As the symptoms become more intense, the animal constantly sits upon its haunches; but I have not seen it carry the head erect, although authors state this to be one of the indications. There is a desire for fresh air, and the dog will always leave the house, or get to the window or door, if he have an opportunity of so doing. These signs are hardly to be mistaken, but they are easily confirmed. If the ear be applied to the side of a healthy dog's chest, no sound can be detected; but when the lungs are diseased, a very plain noise is readily heard. The presence, therefore, of any murmur, or of anything like air escaping over a dry rough surface, is indicative of disease, and the certainty that the lungs are involved is confirmed.

Dogs of late years have not commonly died of pneumonia during the distemper; but authors speak of the pulmonary form of the disorder as having formerly been a common cause of death. I know it only as a mild variation of the ordinary symptoms. It has not in any case under my observation proved fatal, but has readily yielded to gentle measures, aided by attention to simple diet.

The liver is generally involved. After the termination of a fatal case, this gland is found either soft or more brittle than it ought to be, else it is discovered much enlarged. I never saw it of less than its natural size. Generally it is discolored, mostly of a pale tint; which sometimes exists all over the organ, though the pendulous edges of the lobes are very generally seen of the bright red, suggestive of inflammation. The gall-bladder is always distended with a thin dark-green fluid or impure bile; and a large quantity of the same secretion, but of greater consistency, is distributed over the lining membrane of the anterior intestines. The liver obviously is the cause of the yellow distemper, which is no more than jaundice added to the original and pre-existing disease. Yellow distemper is by writers treated of as a distinct disorder, but I have not yet met with it in that form. When it has come under my notice, it has been no more than one of the many complications which the symptoms are liable to assume. The dog has been ill before his skin became discolored; but the eyes not exhibiting that ordinary discharge which denotes the true character of the affection under which he labored, the distemper was not detected.

Everything concerning distemper is by the generality of the public misunderstood. Most people imagine a dog can have the distemper but once in its life; whereas I had a patient that underwent three distinct attacks in one autumn, that of 1849. The majority of persons who profess an intimate knowledge of the dog will tell you distemper is a disorder peculiar to the young; whereas I know of no age that is exempt from its attack. I have known dogs, high-bred favorites, to be left with men selected because of their supposed familiarity with dog diseases; and these very men have brought to me the animals in the fits which are the wind-up of distemper, yet notwithstanding have been ignorant that their charges had any disease whatever. All the stages and symptoms of ordinary distemper may appear and depart unnoticed; but it is widely different with yellow distemper, for when the yellowness appears, it is so marked that no description of a peculiar symptom need be inserted, since it cannot be overlooked or mistaken. It is attended with excessive debility, and, unless properly combated, is rapidly fatal.

The stomach and intestines are always involved; I have never known a case in which either escaped. The affection of the first is generally shown by sickness during the earliest stage; when also the derangement of the last is denoted by either costiveness or relaxation, the bowels never being perfectly regular; towards the latter stages, or about the third or fourth week, the appetite sometimes becomes enormous; the craving for food is then unnatural, and is so intense that no quantity can appease the hunger. The animal will eat anything; dry bread is taken with avidity, and stones, cinders, straw, and every species of filth are eaten with apparent relish. Such, however, is not always the case, since it is not unusual for the appetite entirely to fail. In either instance the dog rapidly wastes; the flesh seems to melt as it were away, and the change produced by a few days is startling; from having been fat, a thinness which exposes every bone is witnessed in a shorter time than would be supposed possible. At this period vomiting may come on; but when the animal is morbidly ravenous, the stomach does not generally reject its contents. After death I have found it loaded with the most irritating substances, and always acutely inflamed; but no sickness in any instance of this kind has been observed. Vomiting is most generally absent, but the protruded and reddened appearance of the anus will give a clue to the actual condition of the alimentary tube. The stomach is inflamed, not throughout, but in various parts which are in different stages of disease. The pyloric orifice is always more affected than the cardiac; the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum, are inflamed; the cæcum is enlarged, inflamed, and generally impacted. The rectum, however, suffers most severely; it is much reddened and thickened, often to an extraordinary degree. I have known blood to be exuded from the surface of this bowel in such quantities as to destroy the life from actual hemorrhage. In one case, however, a spaniel vomited more than half-a-pint of blood previous to its death, which took place two hours afterwards. A small quantity of blood is ordinarily passed with the fæces toward the latter stage; but in several cases a large amount of pure blood, partly coagulated and unmingled with any fæcal matter, has flowed from the body in a continued stream, to which there will be cessation only as death approaches. The possibility of this occurring will give the reader some idea of the extent and degree in which the bowels are or may be diseased; the symptoms, nevertheless, are not such as would suggest the danger which may be shortly violently exemplified. Irregularity of the intestines may be remarked; but it is not so characterised as to force itself upon the attention. The belly during distemper mostly appears tucked up and small; the intestines, even when costiveness exists, are seldom loaded, but all except the rectum may feel empty. The animal is always bound when the bowels are acutely attacked. The first indication we get of this is often colic. The cries are high and yet full at first; but they only occur at periods, between which the dog seems easy and inclined to sleep; gradually the exclamations become more sharp and short, a quantity of dark-coloured fæces are voided, and relief is for a time experienced; the cries, however, return and become continuous; diarrhœa sets in; the excretions become more and more liquid, by degrees mixed with blood, and of a lighter color. Whenever they are discharged, pain is expressed; but as the animal sinks the cries grow less frequent, till at last the excrements pass involuntarily, and death soon takes place.

The cries, however, are not heard in every instance even of this kind, and the abdomen is not generally sensitive to pressure. When the belly is handled, the dog, by contracting the muscles covering the parts, may denote some small degree of resistance; but I have never known it to struggle during the operation. The curving of the spine, the occasional looks towards the seat of agony, and the efforts made to press or draw the belly upon the ground, will indicate the inflammatory character and the locality of the disease. The pulse does not materially aid the judgment; it becomes quicker and more sharp, but hardly to such an extent that dependence can be placed on its indications. The discharges often cease when the disease, in an acute form, becomes concentrated upon the contents of the abdomen; but the nose is almost always hot and harsh, though in a few cases I have known the part remain cold and moist even to the last. As the close draws near, a very peculiar smell, not absolutely powerful, but more sickly than offensive, is emitted. This odor is consequent upon the fæces, and when it is detected the animal seldom or never survives.

The brain, both Blaine and Youatt speak of as subject to inflammation during the latter stage of distemper. As diseases are peculiarly liable to change, and the appearances assumed at different times are by no means uniform, I may not say those estimable writers never beheld it in such a state; but I am certain I have never seen it in a similar condition; I have found it congested, but far oftener have I discovered it perfectly healthy. One of its coverings (the dura mater) has exhibited a few spots of congestion, but these have been small, each not larger than the head of a moderate sized pin, and in number about ten or twelve; generally they are situated towards the anterior of the cranium (on either side or falx), and near to the crista galli.

The bones forming the roof of the skull have, however, been highly vascular – loaded with dark blood – so that if dried they become of almost a black hue; and without disputing the accuracy of either of the authorities I have mentioned, these appearances to my mind account more satisfactorily for symptoms which no one asserts ever border upon phrenitis. The brain seems to me to be only sympathetically affected, not absolutely involved in this disease. When this is threatened, there is generally some notice given before the fits, succeeded by stupor, are displayed. The eye will sometimes brighten, and the discharge from the nose will cease. This, however, is by no means constant; as it is not rare for both to continue, or even to become more copious; but if one only should remain, the nose is certain to be the part whence the deflexion will issue. No positive dependence, therefore, can be placed upon the discharges from the eye or nose. The eye, nevertheless, is certain to denote that which is on the eve of happening. The pupil may be small; and when it is so, its decrease of size will be marked, and it will have little disposition to enlarge. This, however, is rarely witnessed. Generally the pupil is much enlarged, so much as to conceal the iris, and alter the character of the organ. The eye is moreover retracted, and the dog has a very peculiar expression of mingled pain and stupidity. If the hand be placed upon the head, it will be sensibly hot. No matter how thick the coat may be, the heat will be apparent, and the carotid arteries will sensibly throb. The coat feels dry and is warm, although the animal may be trembling to such a degree as prevents the pulse being counted. Yet the dog seems lively; it is active now, though perhaps a little while ago it was dull; every trivial circumstance now attracts its notice. The appetite is generally ravenous. The dog which only the day before was disinclined to feed, is suddenly disposed to eat more than it ever was known to consume; and it will gnaw and swallow the hardest wood for want of better provender. The amended appetite is mostly one of the symptoms, but it is not invariably witnessed; for occasionally increased activity, and the strange appearance of the eye, are all that indicate the approach of fits. It will not be long, however, before something shall be added which is more definite in its meaning. The dog which was running about suddenly stands still, and begins to smack its lips and champ its jaw. It keeps stationary while doing this, and continues so until a quantity of froth and thick saliva falls from the mouth, drops upon the ground, and then the action ceases. The animal looks around with a vacant stare, evidently not conscious where it is, and starts away, hitting itself perhaps against anything which may oppose its progress. If caught it struggles to get loose, and may even bite the hand which, when conscious, it would perish to defend. Almost immediately, however, it regains its faculties, and then seems quite as well as it appeared to be before the attack came on. It may continue subject to be thus seized for several days; or soon after the first attack, fits or convulsions may start up. During the champing colic may set in, which will only yield when the fits are established. The duration of the champing is not regular; it may be only for a few moments, or for several minutes. The attacks may be no more than one or two in the day, or twenty may occur in a single hour. Generally they remain about three days, but here also there is no rule. I have known them to be present for a week, and also to exist only for a few hours. In these latter cases the condition of the dog is generally not understood. It is taken out for a long walk, or it is indulged with a hearty meal; and in the middle of the one, or shortly after the other, it begins to champ, utters a loud sharp cry, which is suddenly cut short as if the animal was choked. The eyes glare, the mouth is open, and before perfect insensibility ensues, the dog bites at every object near it, then falls down convulsed, the limbs stiffen, the head is drawn back or twisted to one side, the urine and dung are voided; and a slate of unconsciousness, which may cease in a few minutes, or continue for hours, during which the body is in contortions, and the saliva flows freely from the mouth, stretches the poor brute upon the earth. When this is over, the dog recovers as from a trance, being always disposed to ramble, and should its strength permit, will start away at its utmost speed. There is neither to the number nor duration of these fits any limit; they may be few or frequent, and long or short. The second may end the life; or every five minutes, nay oftener, they may occur, and the animal survive for days. Any excitement will bring them on, and the passage of the fæces invariably is accompanied by an attack. Diarrhœa always begins when they commence, and the dog soon loses strength, and lies upon its side unconscious and incapable of motion; the pulse is not to be felt, and gradually without a struggle it expires. Let no man, however, be hasty in saying positively when death has taken place. Often has the life seemed gone, for the heart has been still; but minutes afterwards the animal has gasped, and then began to breathe once more. Death, however, comes at last, for if the dog sinks to such a state, I have never known it to revive.

A pustular eruption is often witnessed during the existence of distemper, and I have not seen the same phenomenon distinct from the disease. The two appear to be united, and yet we do not know the manner in which they are connected. The other symptoms are not mitigated when the pustules are matured, nor does their appearance denote any particular crisis or stage of the disorder. I have, however, most frequently seen them towards the latter or confirmed stages of distemper, and often they have immediately preceded the fits. The first indication given is a little redness, which is strictly local or confined to a particular spot. This place is not very red, but, nevertheless, it is obviously inflamed and tender; there is not much swelling, but a slight hardness can be detected. A day or two afterwards the redness dies away, and a globular eminence, perfectly round, and generally about the size of a split pea, is beheld. If it be opened, a proportionate quantity of thick pus of a healthy character escapes, and a comparatively large incrustation forms over the part; if not opened, the pustule bursts and the scab follows, but larger than in the previous case. Mostly the eruption appears on the belly and inside of the thighs, but it is seldom strictly confined to those parts. Often it affects the trunk and tail, but does not usually attack the head and fore-limbs. There is no proof that any benefit attends its development, or any known reason for attributing it to any cause; save only such as can be drawn from the statement, that I have commonly observed it in pups of a weakly constitution and emaciated condition.

The disposition to eat or gnaw some part of the body is often shown to an alarming degree, but is seldom exhibited save in the latter stage of the disease. The dog is observed to lick one of its paws, or mumble at its tail, for some days. The part is always one of the extremities, and is evidently tormented with a violent itching which cannot be allayed. The animal at length, irritated by the torture, attacks the member with its teeth. The skin is first removed, and then the flesh. The mouth may be covered with blood, the teeth clogged with hair, and the very bones attacked; but the pain which the sight of the mangled surface suggests to the spectator seems not to be felt by the dog, which appears desirous only of destroying its own body. I have known two of the toes of one fore-paw to be thus consumed, so that amputation was afterward imperative, portions of the metacarpal bones being laid bare. In several instances the root of the tail has been eaten, until the sacrum and first tail bones, with the nerves, were exposed. The rage cannot be overcome, and, unless the disposition be prevented by mechanical means, the consequence will be fatal. No author that I am acquainted with has noticed this peculiarity; and in general it is attributed to other causes than distemper, which is either not observed, or is supposed to have been got over.

Tumors on various parts of the body, and of different kinds, sometimes but not usually accompany the disease; but as I have not been able to satisfy myself they are peculiar to the disorder, or induced by any other cause than the debility attendant on distemper, there is in this place no occasion to more than point out the possibility of their appearance. They are unfavorable as indications of general weakness, but they do not seem to possess any further or direct influence over the course of the affection.

The genital organs rarely escape altogether. A thick purulent discharge, or one of a glairy nature, is often present in the male throughout the attack, and nearly always during recovery. In both sexes the bladder in the latter stages is apt to be paralysed, and the accumulation of the urine then becomes a prominent symptom. The recovery often commences after relief has been obtained, but if the necessity be overlooked, death generally ensues.

Paralysis of the hind extremities is occasionally witnessed, and when seen is generally sudden in its appearance. Sometimes, however, the loss of power is gradual, and when such is the case the hopes of a cure are always diminished. If the power of motion be lost suddenly, costiveness mostly exists; and if, on the other hand, it should be gradual, there may be diarrhœa, which will terminate in death.

Twitches, choræa, or Saint Vitus's dance, are not very usual, and may continue for months after every other symptom has subsided. All four limbs are sometimes violently agitated, and even during sleep are not quiescent. The motion is incessant, and when this is the case the animal dies, worn out by the want of bodily rest. In the majority of instances only one limb is affected; and a species of independence of volition, or incapability of controlling its movements, accompanies the affection. Though never still, the leg is comparatively useless, and is carried in a manner which denotes this fact. The muscles of the trunk are less commonly attacked, but they do not always escape. When the legs have not been thus affected, I have known the abdominal and thoracic muscles to be troubled by continuous twitchings; which, however, have been for the most part slight, and have subsided more quickly than have those of the extremities, when they have been diseased. Cholera comes on gradually; its commencement is hardly to be perceived, and it is seldom observed before the distemper is fully developed – even sometimes only when the disorder appears to be subsiding. It is not rare for it to start up while the animal is apparently recovering; and when it does so, it is always most difficult to remove. No pain is felt in the affected limb; the part rather seems to lose some portion of its sensibility.

When the hind parts are paralysed, feeling may be entirely gone; so that a pin thrust into the flesh of those parts does not even attract the notice of the dog. This does not occur in choræa, but the consciousness is dulled by that affection. The convulsed limb may be more roughly handled than the healthy ones; but violence will excite those answers which truly indicate that insensibility is not established in it. If nothing be done for the twitchings, the limb will waste; at last the general system will be sympathetically involved, and the body will grow thin. This, however, may not happen until long after all signs of distemper have disappeared; for choræa, though well known to be often fatal, is always slow in its progress, and never attended with immediate danger.

Such is an outline of the leading symptoms; and it now remains only to more particularly point out those which indicate death and denote recovery. The third or fourth week is the time when the dog mostly dies, if the disorder terminates fatally; and six weeks is the average continuance of the attack. Rapid loss of flesh is always a bad sign, and it is worse in proportion as the appetite is good, because then nature has lost the power of appropriation. The presence of vermin is likewise a circumstance which in some measure is deserving of notice. If a dog becomes, during the existence of this disorder, unusually infested with fleas, or more especially if lice all at once cover its coat, – as these parasites ever abound where the body is debilitated and the system unhealthy, – they are at such a period particularly ominous. The coat cannot, while the disease prevails, be expected to look sleek; but when it becomes more than usually harsh, and is decidedly foul, having a peculiar smell, which is communicated to the hand when it is passed over the body, the anticipations are not bright. The most marked indication is, however, given by the tongue. When this is only a little whiter than it was in health, we may hope for recovery; but if it becomes coated, discolored, and red and dry at its tip and edges, the worst may be foretold. The warning is the more decided if the breath be hot and tainted, and the belly and feet cold to the touch. While the dog can stand and walk, however feebly, there is no reason to despair; but when it falls down, and lies upon its side, rarely is medicine of much avail. Even then, however, it will sometimes recover; but if, while in this state, injections are returned as soon as they are administered, the chance that it can survive is indeed remote.

Recovery, in extreme cases, usually commences after diarrhœa which had set in has subsided, rather than during its attack. This is the only semblance to anything approaching a crisis which has come hither under my observation. If simultaneously the eyes lose their red and glassy aspect, and the cough returns, the danger may be supposed to have been passed. For weeks, however, the animal will require attention; for the convalescence is often more difficult to master than the disease itself is to cure; and relapses, always more dangerous than the original attack, are by no means unusual. The recovery may not be perfect before one or even two months have expired; but usually it is rapid, and the health is better than it was previous to the disease. A dog which would before never make flesh, having had the distemper, will often become fat. I once tried all in my power to relieve a Newfoundland dog of worms, but though I persisted for months, I was at last reluctantly obliged to admit the case was beyond any treatment I dared employ. A fortnight after I had given it up, the same animal was brought to me, suffering under evident distemper. I was not displeased to see it in that state, for I felt I could overcome the disease; and I told the proprietor that with the distemper the worms would depart. So it proved, and the dog has not since been subject to the annoyance.

When the violence of the disorder has declined, the skin generally peels, the cuticle is cut off, and the hair is scurfy. I have even known the soles of the feet to cast their outer covering, and in one case three of the nails were shed. The teeth, also, are coated with a thick fur, and the breath is offensive; but as the strength returns at the same time, these circumstances are not to be viewed in a serious light. In one or two instances, where the system seemed to be so shaken that it retained no strength to cast off the lingering remnant of the distemper, mange has burst forth, and proceeded very rapidly; but it yielded with equal speed to mild external remedies, and is therefore only to be feared inasmuch as it disfigures the dog for a time, retarding the ultimate restoration to health by further taxing the enfeebled body.

During the recovery from distemper, small and delicate animals – terriers and spaniels – are very liable to faint; the dog is lively, perhaps excited, when suddenly it falls upon its side, and all its limbs stiffen. A series of these attacks may follow one another, though generally one only occurs; when numerous and rapid, there is some danger, but, as a general rule, little apprehension need be entertained. The fainting fits are of some consequence, if they exist during a sickening for, or maturing of, distemper. In pups that have not passed the climax of the disease, they are not unseldom the cause of death; but, even in that case, I have never been convinced that the measures adopted for the relief did not kill quite as much or even more than the affection. When the symptom is mistaken, and wrong remedies are resorted to, the fainting fit will often continue for hours, or never be overcome. When let alone, the attack mostly does not last longer than a quarter of an hour, and under judicious treatment the consciousness almost immediately returns. When the fainting fits occur during the progress or advance of the disease – that is, before the symptoms have begun to amend – it is usually preceded by signs of aggravation. For twelve or twenty-four hours previously the dog is perceptibly worse; it may moan or cry, and yet no organ seems to be decidedly affected more seriously than it was before. I attribute the sounds made to headache; and, confirming this opinion, there is always some heat at the scalp. The animal is dull, but immediately before the collapse it attempts to wander, and has begun to move, probably panting at the same time, when it falls without a cry, and stiffens. In this state – the rigidity occasionally being less, but the unconsciousness continuing unchanged – it will remain; the eyes are turned upward or into the skull, the gums and tongue are pallid, the legs and belly cold: the appearances are those of approaching death, which, unless relief is afforded, may in a short time take place. When the fainting occurs after convalescence is established, the attack is sudden, the symptoms are less violent, and the coma of shorter duration. In this last case there is generally little danger, but there is always sufficient reason for alarm, and help ought never to be delayed. These attacks are commonly confounded with true distemper fits, from which they are altogether distinct; and from which they may be readily distinguished by the absence of the champing of the jaw, the want of any disposition to bite, the immediate insensibility which ensues, the shrieks not being heard, and the urine or fæces not being voided. Nevertheless, the two are usually confounded, and hence many persons are found asserting that distemper fits are easily cured; and several dogs have been shown to me at different times, which their owners were confident had been attacked by distemper fits, and radically cured by the most simple, and often ridiculous specifics. I have sometimes in despair – even against my reason – tried these boasted remedies, but in no instance has the result rewarded me. Where there was real occasion for a potent medicine, and little hope that any drug could benefit, the nostrums have, without a single exception, belied the confident recommendations with which they were offered, and either have done harm or proved inoperative.

The symptoms of distemper, as the reader will, after wading through the foregoing description, have perceived, are numerous and complicated; they admit of no positive arrangement, being both eccentric in their order and appearances. Redness of the eyes, with discharge from both eyes and nose, accompanied with ordinary signs of illness, are the early indications; but even these are not to be sought for, or to be expected in any single form. The judgment must be exercised, and study strengthened by experience will alone enable any man to pronounce the presence of distemper in many cases; while, perhaps, without knowledge or practice any person may recognise it in the generality of instances.

The treatment is rendered the more difficult because of the insidious nature of the disorder, and the uncertain character of its symptoms; under such circumstances, it is no easy task to make perfectly clear those instructions I am about to give. I am in possession of no specific; I do not pretend to teach how to conjure; I am going only to lay down certain rules which, if judiciously applied, will tend to take from this disease that fatal reputation which it has hitherto acquired. I shall be obliged, however, to leave much to the discretion of the reader; for it would employ too great a space, did I attempt to make provision for all possible accidents and probable combinations.

The diet is of all importance; it must be strictly attended to. In the first place, meat or flesh must be withheld. Boiled rice, with a little broth from which the fat has been removed, may be the food of a weakly animal, but for the majority bread and milk will be sufficient; whichever is employed must be given perfectly cold. Sugar, butter, sweet biscuits, meat, gravy, greens, tea or pot liquor – either luxuries or trash – must be scrupulously denied in any quantity, however small. Skim-milk, if perfectly sweet, is to be preferred, and coarse bread or ship biscuits are better than the same articles of a finer quality. These will form the diet, when the dog can be brought to accept them; and to rice, the favorite – however great may be the pity he elicits, or however urgent may be his solicitations for a more liberal fare – must be rigidly confined. If, after a few trials, the dog stubbornly refuses such provender, meat must of necessity be given, but it should be of the very best description, and rather underdone. Of this kind, it ought to be minced, and mixed with so much rice or ship biscuit as the animal can at first be made to eat with it; the rice or biscuit may then be gradually increased; and in the end the vegetable substance will constitute, at all events, the major part of the support. Water, constantly changed – a circumstance too little attended to where dogs are concerned – must be the only drink; the bed must be warm and dry, but airy. Cleanliness cannot be carried to too nice an extent; here the most fastidious attention is not out of place. Let the kennel be daily cleared, and the bed regularly changed at least thrice-a-week; straw or hay is better for the dog to sleep upon than cushions or blankets, which, being more expensive, are not so frequently replaced. Too much hay or straw cannot be allowed, but, on the other hand, it is difficult to regulate the quantity of the finer articles. In the last kind of bed the animal is often almost smothered, or else he scrapes them into a lump, and lies shivering on the top; whereas, when he has straw to lie upon, he can either creep beneath it, and shelter himself when sensible of cold, or expose himself to the air when oppressed by the fever. The sensations being the only guide, it is best to leave the dog, as much as possible, capable of obeying its instinct; but always let the bed be ample, as during the night the shivering generally prevails, and the cold fit is entirely independent of the heat to be felt at the skin, or the temperature of the season. Let the dog be kept away from the fire, for, if permitted, it will creep to the hearth, and may be injured by the falling cinders, when the burn will not perhaps readily heal. A cold or rather cool place is to be selected – one protected from wet, free from damp, and not exposed to wind or draughts. The kennel, if properly constructed, is the better house, for dogs do best in the open air; the only objection to which is, the chance it offers of the animal being drenched with rain. If the kennel can be placed under an open outhouse, I should always have it put there; and what else I would recommend is, of course, told by the line of conduct which I pursue.

Medicinal measures are not to be so quickly settled. A constant change of the agents employed will be imperative, and the practitioner must be prepared to meet every symptom as it appears. The treatment is almost wholly regulated by the symptoms, and as the last are various, of course the mode of vanquishing them cannot be uniform. To guide us, however, there is the well-known fact, the disease we have to subdue is of a febrile kind, and has a decided tendency to assume a typhoid character; therefore, whatever is done must be of a description not likely to exhaust, – depletion is altogether out of the question. The object we have to keep in view is the support of nature, and the husbanding of those powers which the malady is certain to prey upon: in proportion as this is done, so will be the issue. In the very early stage, purgatives or emetics are admissible. If a dog is brought to me with reddened eyes, but no discharge, and the owner does no more with regard to the animal than complain of dulness, a want of appetite, and a desire to creep to the warmth, then I give a mild emetic such as is directed, page 119; and this I repeat for three successive mornings; on the fourth day administering a gentle purge, as ordered, page 116. The tartar emetic solution and purgative pills I employ for these purposes, in preference to castor oil or ipecacuanha, and during the same time I prescribe the following pills: —

Make into twenty-four pills, and give three daily; choosing the lowest amount specified, or the intermediate quantities, according to the size of the animal.

Often under this treatment the disease will appear to be suddenly cut short. With the action of the purgative, or even before it has acted, all the symptoms will disappear, and nothing remains which seems to say any further treatment is required. I never rest here, for experience has taught me that these appearances are deceptive, and the disorder has a disposition to return. Consequently strict injunctions are given as to diet, and a course of tonics is adopted: —

Make into twenty pills, and give three daily.

At the same time I give the liquor arsenicalis, which I prepare not exactly as is directed to be made by the London pharmacopœia, but after the following method: —

Take any quantity of arsenious acid, and adding to it so much distilled water as will constitute one ounce of the fluid to every four grains of the substance, put the two into a glass vessel. To these put a quantity of carbonate of potash equal to that of the acid, and let the whole boil until the liquid is perfectly clear. The strength is the same as the preparation used in human practice; the only difference is, the coloring and flavoring ingredients are omitted, because they render the medicine distasteful to the dog. The dose for the dog is from one drop to three drops; it may be carried higher, but should not be used in greater strength, when a tonic or febrifuge effect only is desired.

Of the liquor arsenicalis I take ten or twenty drops, and adding one ounce of distilled water, mingled with a little simple syrup, I order a teaspoonful to be given thrice daily with the pills, or in a little milk, or in any fluid the creature is fond of. The taste being pleasant, the dog does not object to this physic, and it is of all importance that it should be annoyed at this time as little as may be possible.

Numerous are the cases which have thus been shortened by this method; and the advantage gained by this mode of treatment is, that if the measures employed be not absolutely necessary, they do no harm, and if required, they are those which are calculated to mitigate the violence of the disease; so for three or four weeks I pursue this course, and should all then appear well, I dismiss the case.

Most generally, however, the dogs brought to us with the distemper have the disease fairly established before we see them. Then I never purge or vomit: the time when such agents could be remedial has passed, and if now used, though they will seem to do some immediate good, the after consequences are always to be regretted. The action of the purgative has scarcely subsided before the distemper assumes a more virulent form, and the probability of the termination is rendered more dark. During the distemper I pay little attention to the bowels; and, however great may be the costiveness, I never venture to resort even to a laxative, though, should I discover the rectum to be impacted with hard fæces, an enema may be employed. That which I use on these occasions is composed of gruel, to which some sulphuric ether and laudanum has been added.

The above quantity will be ample for the largest dog – one-eighth will be enough for a small animal – and for a mere pup, an ounce of the fluid is often sufficient. In these cases, however, I always continue the injection until it is returned, the object not being to have it retained; but simply to lubricate the part, and thereby facilitate the passage of the fæces, while by distending the rectum, that intestine is stimulated to expel its contents. The ether and laudanum are introduced to guard against the possibility of irritation. If a more than usual disposition to costiveness be observed, twice a week a meal of liver, chopped very fine, is allowed; but even this should be given only after there is absolute proof of its necessity.

Of the cough, however distressing it may be, I take no notice. I do nothing for its relief, but persevere in the tonic treatment, and become more strict in my directions concerning diet. The cough is only one of the symptoms attendant on the disorder, and the measures likely to mitigate its severity will aggravate the disease; while by attacking the disorder, we destroy the cause, and with that the effect also disappears.

The eyes I treat, or rather refuse to treat, upon the same principle. Whatever may be the appearance they present – even though the animal should be actually blind, the eye of a dull thick white color on its entire surface, and the centre of the cornea ulcerated – nevertheless I let them alone, and turn a deaf ear to the entreaties which call on me to relieve so terrible an affliction: I forbid even the discharge to be washed off. Nothing must go near them; but the treatment must be pursued as though we were ignorant that the parts were affected. Any excessive accumulation may be gently picked off with the fingers once a-day; but even this must be performed with the utmost caution, and in most instances had better be let alone. It can only be necessary in dogs that have very long hair which becomes matted and glued together upon the cheeks; for other animals it is not imperative. If the lids should be stuck together, the fastening substance may be removed; but it should not be too quickly done even then. All water, either warm, tepid, or cold – every kind of lotion, or any sort of salve or powder – will do harm, by either weakening or irritating the organs. As to bleeding, blistering, and setoning, which have been advised, they are contrary to the dictates of humanity, and as a necessary consequence, are injurious. In medicine, at least with the dog, that which is not kind is not good. With these animals the feelings are much safer than the reason; and a lady, consulting the impulses of her heart, would be more likely to save her favorite than a veterinary surgeon, who proceeded upon the practice of that which he supposed was his science. Let the eyes of the sufferer alone – we cannot alleviate the pain, or shorten its duration. The disease regulates the torture, and to that we must give attention. If the distemper is conquered, the sight will mostly be restored; but if the eyes are tampered with, consequences may ensue which are not natural to the disease, but are induced by the crude and cruel prejudices of the doctor. The man who, during distemper, seeing an ulcer upon the cornea, under the imagination that by so doing he will set up a healthy action, presumes to touch it with lunar caustic, will in the resistance of the poor patient be rebuked, and, by the humour of the eye squirting into his face, probably be informed that he has accomplished the very object he intended to prevent, while a fungoid mass will spring up to commemorate his achievement.

When the lungs are attacked, all kinds of mistaken cruelties have been perpetrated. No wonder the disease has been so fatal, when it has been so little understood. I cannot conceive that any dog could survive the measures I was by my college tutor taught to pursue, or the plan which books told me to adopt. Needlessly severe, calculated to strengthen the disease, and to decrease the power of the animal to survive, as the general practice decidedly is, I entreat the reader to reject it. In truth, the involvement of the lungs is in distemper a very slight affair; no symptom yields more quickly or to milder means. Do not forget the diet, but let it be both low and small. The system cannot endure depletion, therefore we must gain whatever we can through abstinence. Do not starve, but be cautious not to cram the animal; only keep it so short that it remains always hungry. The meal must now never be full, or sufficient to satisfy the appetite, which is usually large. A loaded stomach would do much injury, therefore little and often is the rule. The amount for the day must be cut off in the morning; and during the day, at as many times as the owner pleases, it may little by little be offered, but no more must be allowed. If the dog should not be inclined to eat, which is not often the case at this particular period, the circumstance is hardly to be regretted; he is not, save under the direction of one qualified to give such an order, to be enticed or forced. As for medicine, let the following pill be given thrice daily: —

This will be the quantity for one pill; but a better effect is produced if the medicine be administered in smaller doses, and at shorter intervals. If the dog can be constantly attended to, and does not resist the exhibition of pills, or will swallow them readily when concealed in a bit of meat, the following may be given every hour: —

With these a very little of the tincture of aconite may be also blended, not more than one drop to four pills. The tonics ought during the time to be discontinued, and the chest should be daily auscultated to learn when the symptoms subside. So soon as a marked change is observed, the tonic treatment must be resumed, nor need we wait until all signs of chest affection have disappeared. When the more active stage is mastered by strengthening the system, the cure is often hastened; but the animal should be watched, as sometimes the affection will return. More frequently, however, while the lungs engross attention, the eyes become disordered. When such is the case, the tonics may be at once resorted to; for then there is little fear but the disease is leaving the chest to involve other structures.

Diarrhœa may next start up. If it appears, let ether and laudanum be immediately administered, both by the mouth and by injection. To one pint of gruel add two ounces of sulphuric ether, and four scruples of the tincture of opium; shake them well together. From half an ounce to a quarter of a pint of this may be employed as an enema, which should be administered with great gentleness, as the desire is that it should be retained. This should be repeated every third hour, or oftener if the symptoms seem urgent, and there is much straining after the motions. From a tablespoonful to four times that quantity of the ether and laudanum mixture, in a small quantity of simple syrup, may be given every second hour by the mouth; but if there is any indication of colic, the dose may be repeated every hour or half hour; and I have occasionally given a second dose when only ten minutes have elapsed. Should the purgation continue, and the pain subside, from five to twenty drops of liquor potassæ may be added to every dose of ether given by the mouth; which, when there is no colic, should be once in three hours, and the pills directed below may be exhibited at the same time: —

To the foregoing, from two to eight grains of powdered catechu may be added should it seem to be required, but it is not generally needed. Opium more than has been recommended, in this stage, is not usually beneficial; and, save in conjunction with ether, which appears to deprive it of its injurious property, I am not in the habit of employing it.

I have been more full in my directions for diarrhœa than was perhaps required by the majority of cases. Under the administration of the ether only I am, therefore, never in a hurry to resort even to the liquor potassæ, which, however, I use some time before I employ the astringent pills, and during the whole period I persevere with the tonic. The diet I restrict to strong beef tea, thickened with ground rice, and nothing of a solid nature is allowed. Should these measures not arrest the purgation, but the fæces become offensive, chloride of zinc is introduced into the injection, and also into the ether given by the mouth. With the first, from a teaspoonful to a tablespoonful of the solution is combined, and with the last half those quantities is blended. A wash, composed of two ounces of the solution of the chloride to a pint of cold water, is also made use of to cleanse the anus, about which, and the root of the tail, the fæces have a tendency to accumulate. Warm turpentine I have sometimes with advantage had repeatedly held to the abdomen, by means of flannels heated and then dipt into the oil, which is afterwards wrung out. This, however, is apt to be energetic in its action; but that circumstance offers no objection to its employment. When it causes much pain, it may be discontinued, and with the less regret, as the necessity is the less in proportion as the sensibility is the greater. Should it even produce no indication of uneasiness, it must nevertheless not be carried too far, since on the dog it will cause serious irritation if injudiciously employed; and we may then have the consequences of the application to contend with added to the effects of the disease. When it produces violent irritation, a wash made of a drachm of the carbonate of ammonia to half a pint of water may be applied to the surface; and when the inflammation subsides, the part may be dressed with spermaceti ointment. The fits are more to be dreaded than any other symptom; when fairly established, they are seldom mastered. I have no occasion to boast of the success of my treatment of these fits. All I can advance in favor of my practice is, that it does sometimes save the life, and certainly alleviates the sufferings of the patient; while of that plan of treatment which is generally recommended and pursued, I can confidently assert it always destroys, adding torture to the pains of death. In my hands not more than one in ten are relieved, but when I followed the custom of Blaine none ever lived, – the fate was sealed, and its horrors were increased by the folly and ignorance of him who was employed to watch over, and was supposed to be able to control. Let the owners of dogs, when these animals have true distemper fits, rather cut short their lives than allow the creatures to be tampered with for no earthly prospect. I have no hesitation when saying this; the doom of the dog with distemper fits may be regarded as sealed; and medicine, which will seldom save, should be studied chiefly as a means of lessening the last agonies. In this light alone can I recommend the practice I am in the habit of adopting. When under it any animal recovers, the result is rather to be attributed to the powers of nature than to be ascribed to the virtues of medicine; which by the frequency of its failure shows that its potency is subservient to many circumstances. Blaine and Youatt, both by the terms in which they speak of, and the directions they lay down for, the cure of distemper fits, evidently did not understand the pathology of this form of the disease. These authors seem to argue that the fits are a separate disease, and not the symptoms only of an existing disorder. The treatment they order is depletive, whereas, the attacks appearing only after the distemper has exhausted the strength, a little reflection convinces us the fits are the results of weakness. Their views are mistaken, and their remedies are prejudicial. They speak of distemper being sometimes ushered in by a fit, and their language implies that the convulsions, sometimes seen at the first period, are identical with those witnessed only during the latest stages. This is not the fact. A fit may be observed before the appearance of the distemper; and anything which, like a fit, shows the system to be deranged, may predispose the animal to be affected; but, between fits of any kind, and the termination of the affection in relation to distemper, there is no reason to imagine there is an absolute connexion. The true distemper fit is never observed early – at least, I have never beheld it – before the expiration of the third week; and I am happy in being able to add, that when my directions have from the first been followed, I have never known an instance in which the fits have started up. Therefore, if seldom to be cured, I have cause to think they may be generally prevented.

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Catechu, one drachm, will be better than the Calumba. It is far more efficacious. —Dinks.

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