DISTEMPER 163 



gruel made with fine Oatmeal and boiling milk will usually be taken, espe- 

 cially if not too thick. Again, though we dispense with meat, gravy may 

 be offered and soup made by boiling bones. As the animal regains his 

 strength meat may be recommended, by slow degrees, but it should be 

 thoroughly cooked, and it might also be minced with advantage, as the 

 dog, even in sickness, is prone to his natural habit of "bolting" food. 



Another excellent food we have found for invalid dogs is the family 

 rice pudding — rice baked with milk. A dog will generally accept this and 

 it forms both a satisfying and nutritious meal. 



Keeping them eating is the great trouble — and eat they must, in order 

 to sustain sufficient strength to get through this trying ordeal. When the 

 dog quits eating and refuses food, try and coax him to eat by getting and 

 cooking him something new and delicate that he has not been used to 

 getting ordinarily. I have often gone out and bought a quail, or some 

 delicacy like this, and he would eat it when he had refused everything else. 

 Gravy made with flour in it, from stewed chicken giblets, they will often eat. 

 It requires patience on the owner's part and too much care and kind- 

 ness can hardly be exercised, as they materially help and encourage the 

 dog to pull through. Some dogs give up much easier than others, for a 

 dog with distemper is a very sick dog, and here is where you can do 

 them a lot of good in keeping up their courage by the attention you bestow 

 on them. The after results of distemper are numerous and much to be 

 dreaded, especially in cases that have not been promptly treated. Chorea 

 is the worst of all and so frequently follows distemper. 



Now, as an after medicine to build the dog up, Eberhart's Tonic Pills 

 will work wonders. By this I mean after your dog is over distemper, 

 yet weak and very much run down. I invariably keep my dogs on these 

 pills for a few weeks until they are again themselves, and look and act 

 like well dogs. 



Distemper is not necessarily fatal if proper care and treatment is given, 

 and when I have discovered it in my kennels, I do not give up and think 

 they will die, but I go to work at the first signs and try, and expect to save 

 them. The careful nursing and attention is highly important, and as to 

 this, every authority on the subject will agree. The dog has to go through 

 a regular siege and cannot be cured in a few days by any medicine, and 

 too much medicine would be even worse than none at all — here is where 

 the good nursing comes in. If you do this part all right and can keep 

 the dog eating enough of the proper food to keep its strength up, and the 

 surroundings and care are all properly looked after, the dog need not die. 



There is another important point, and that is in regard to a dog's bed- 

 ding. The more frequently this can be .changed during sickness the better. 

 When I have taken a lot of dogs to a bench show, my own and others, 

 especially if I knew they had never had distemper, I have always made 

 it a rule to give these dogs either one or the other of these remedies during 

 the show, and for a few days after, as a safeguard against their contracting 

 distemper at the show, and with only one exception in many years of 

 exhibiting, I have never lost a dog from its being at a show. I believe, 

 if this was made a practice by all exhibitors at dog shows, that we would 

 not hear of so many cases of distemper as an after-result of exhibiting. 



The following article on this disease was written by Wm. A. Bruette, 

 D. V. S., ("Dent."), the well- known veterinary surgeon of Chicago. It 

 is a very complete and comprehensive treatise on the subject by a man 

 who has had experience with dogs for years, and who, besides being a 

 qualified veterinarian, is also a gradute in human practice and is consid- 

 ered reliable authority by many dog fanciers: 



"Distemper. (By Dent.) Of the various diseases that dogdom is 

 heir to distemper is the one particular black cloud to the breeder, as its 

 ravages are greater among the finely bred dogs kept in large kennels, or as 

 pets, whose systems are weakened by in-and-in breeding, or the highly 

 artificial life they are forced to lead. Dogs of low degree are susceptible 

 to the malady, but rarely succumb. The common cur when attacked re- 

 tires for a few days under the first available house or porch, to reappear 



