FEEDING 223 



FEEDING 



Feeding. — Here is an important subject which should be well understood. 

 No dog over six months old should ever have over two meals' per day, and 

 regularity in eating is just as important in dogs as it is in human beings. 

 Dogs should have plain food, but don't be afraid of giving them some meat 

 once a day, cooked, and cut up small, avoiding fat, and also not feeding 

 veal or pork, neither of which are good for dogs, beef and mutton are both 

 good — we eat meat every day, and why not our dogs. Never feed lights, not 

 digestible, and you might as well feed leather. Cooked liver is always rel- 

 ished by a clog, and once a week of cooked liver is a treat, it also acting as 

 a laxative, but not much nourishment in liver and. a dog fed too much liver 

 would not thrive, gain much flesh, or keep in good condition. Now as to 

 milk — I don't go much on too much sweet milk, don't think it is good for a 

 dog, and if given milk daily, would soon get very tired of it. Sour milk 

 once in a while, is better. Buttermilk is better yet, and in summer time 

 I give my dogs all around, some buttermilk as an "extra.' once a week. As 

 to feeding, I am writing now as to the older, or matured dogs, and not as 

 to the puppies, as to their feeding being advised upon elsewhere. 



I have on an average of seventy-five dogs in my kennel, and here is 

 their bill of fare. For breakfast, winch is served about seven o'clock in 

 summer and eight o'clock in winter, they get Spratt's Patent Dog Cakes for 

 their breakfast, fed dry. but broken up into small pieces (excepting to young 

 puppies that yet require soft food and to be fed oftener than twice a day). 

 This I break up with a hammer on the board walk in their yards, or in 

 wet weather, on the kennel floor, spreading it out so the dog's don't get to 

 fighting. I let them all pitch in and cat, which they do with a relish, and 

 why shouldn't they? It is a prepared food for dogs, composed of beef, flour, 

 oatmeal, bone meal, etc., in fact articles that a'dog needs. When your pup- 

 pies' teeth are developed sufficiently then they can have it, but broken up 

 smaller. Spratt's Patent make a special prepared Puppy Cake, which is 

 more suitable for the youngsters. See their page advertisement in front of 

 book, or I can furnish you with it. 



Spratts now Kibble their dog cakes, run them through a machine, so 

 they are about the size of a hickory nut, and this saves the trouble of break- 

 ing it up — the dogs like it, although some of my larger dogs will take a 

 whole cake and chew it up like a bone. 



As a rule, it is best to feed it dry, although occasionally it is a good 

 plan to moisten it with either hot or cold water or with soup. Dry, it 

 serves the purpose of a bone and good for cleaning teeth, sweetening breath 

 and is digestible. I let my dogs eat about what they want for breakfast, 

 but if any is left, don't let it lay, but pick it up and save for next morning, in 

 action it is a perfect regulator, and its use will give a dog a good coat, a 

 clean breath and sound, handsome teeth. Until supper time, about five 

 o'clock, they get nothing, and this is as it should be. The F. H. Bennett 

 Biscuit Co. (see their advertisement), make a very good dog cake, called 

 Maltoid Milk — Bone, made in the shape of a bone, and I have used this 

 also, and the dogs like it. Now as to supper, the main meal, as it should 

 be for a dog, here is the bill of fare as fed for years in my kennel. I get 

 meat sent out from my butcher in Cincinnati daily, beef, mutton, and some- 

 times, a sheep or calves head or two and a big lot of fresh bones, and my 

 man cooks this up in a big kettle, then cuts the meat up into small pieces 

 and trims the bones down some, then in the soup we put Conner's Cooked 

 Dog Food, which is a cereal, (see their advertisement), and makes a medium 

 thick mush. Now when feeding time comes for supper, each dog is fed a 



