HOME REARING VERSUS WALKING. 197 



HOME REARING VERSUS WALKING. 



When one or two puppies only are to be reared, they may be 

 readily brought up at home, excepting in towns or other confined 

 situations, where due liberty and a proper amount of sun and air 

 can not be obtained. But where a larger number are to be reared, 

 as in the case of hounds, greyhounds, pointers, and setters, etc., 

 there is a diflBculty attending upon numbers, as a dozen or two of 

 puppies about the house are not conducive to the neatness and 

 beauty of the garden ; besides which, the collection together in 

 masses of young dogs is prejudicial to their health. To avoid 

 this evil, therefore, it is customary to send puppies out at three or 

 four months of age to be kept by cottagers, butchers, small farm- 

 ers, etc., at a weekly sum for each, which is called " walking '* 

 them. Young greyhounds may be reared in a large enclosure, 

 which should be not less than thirty or forty feet long, with a 

 lodging-house at one end ; but hounds do not take exercise enough 

 in a confined space, and should invariably be sent out. It is only, 

 therefore, in reference to the rearing of greyhounds that the two 

 plans can be compared, or perhaps also with pointers and setters, 

 if they are taken out to exercise after they are four or five months 

 old. 



The two plans have been extensively tried with the longtails, 

 and in my own opinion the preference should be given to the 

 home rearing if properly carried out, because it has all the advan- 

 tages of the " walk" without those disadvantages attending upon 

 it, in the shape of bad habits acquired in chasing poultry, rabbits, 

 and often hares, during which the puppy learns to run cunning. 

 One of the first symptoms of this vice is the waiting to cut oflT a 

 corner, which is soon learned if there is the necessity for it, and 

 even in mutual play the puppy will often develop it. Hence I 

 have seen a " walked " greyhound, with his very first hare, show 

 as much waiting as any old worn-out runner, evidently acquired 

 in his farm yard education, or possibly from having been tempted 

 after a hare or two by the sheep-dog belonging to the farm, More- 

 Over, the home-reared puppy, being confined in a limited space 



