The Dog in the House 47 



soaked in water or soup, with or without added meat. So that it will be 

 seen that there is a variety of methods for feeding. 



No matter what the material is of which the mush is made, there is one 

 absolute rule which must be followed, or the dogs will soon get out of shape: 

 that is, thorough cooking. What the grain is or what meal may be used 

 is, in our opinion, of far less consequence than the most thorough cooking. 

 For two summer seasons we made the night meal of stale bread, mixed 

 variously with milk, buttermilk, soup, and soup and meat. The first sum- 

 mer we used ordinary stale bread got by the barrel. The dogs kept all right 

 till the end of August, and then there was trouble. We should say that a 

 variation was made in the evening meal by using broken biscuits soaked in 

 soup or with a little meat added. 



The next year we decided to try oven-dried stale bread, fearing that 

 perhaps some of the ordinary stale bread had become mouldy and had 

 thus affected the dogs. The result was the same: dogs were all right until 

 September, and then almost the whole kennel went wrong. We decided 

 against bread as the staple for the third summer and tried broken rice as 

 the main food, adopting after several trials a home-made jacket-cooker con- 

 sisting of a deep tin pail which sinks to within three inches of the top in a 

 straight-sided galvanised-iron wash-tub. Perhaps one of those galvanised- 

 iron ash-holders might answer the purpose. With this combination the 

 meat can be cooked in the jacket-boiler while the rice-mixture is boiled in 

 the pail. This third year the dogs did well all through, but were rather poor 

 in flesh. Late in August we added half rolled oats, but there was little im- 

 provement in condition, and in October, thinking that our bete noire, corn- 

 meal, might be ventured, we mixed equal quantities of rice, rolled oats and 

 ground hominy, and the beneficial result was at once apparent. The dogs 

 put on flesh and thrived wonderfully, and so far as we are concerned we have 

 solved the problem of feeding cooked food and keeping clear of skin troubles. 

 Our main reliance is in the perfect cooking, and for that purpose rice in the 

 mixture is very essential. On one occasion we even had uncracked oats 

 put in by mistake, and tried that with some misgivings, but it cooked quite 

 as soon as the rice, and when that is soft and fully swollen one may depend 

 upon corn-meal or hominy being done, too. The latter, unless thoroughly 

 cooked, will in a month set a kennel of dogs scratching themselves to pieces. 



Whatever meat you get, have it clean and sweet. Kennels in a farming 

 country can generally procure a cow or horse, and so long as the meat keeps 



