No. 4.] REPORT OF CATTLE BUREAU. 209 



You will see by the above that the dog officers are now appointed 

 to be on duty during the entire year, instead of from the first of 

 July until the first of October, as formerly. 



It might at first glance appear that it was outside of the province 

 of the Chief of the Cattle Bureau to call your attention to the pro- 

 visions of this chapter; but owing to the prevalence of rabies in 

 Massachusetts during the past two years, I believe that a stricter 

 enforcement of the law relating to the licensing of dogs, and having 

 the owners supply them with suitable collars on which the name of 

 the owner and the license number are engraved, will lead to the 

 destruction of large numbers of ownerless, homeless and stray dogs, 

 which are the animals that play the most important part in the 

 dissemination of rabies. It therefore seems that hi taking steps for 

 the suppression of a contagious disease I am not going beyond the 

 bounds of propriety in calling your attention to the provisions of 

 the chapter quoted above. 



Yours respectfully, 



Austin Peters, 

 Chief of Cattle Bureau. 



In Massachusetts the law requires owners of dogs to license 

 them, and the law also provides that the secretary of the 

 State Board of Health shall furnish a description of the 

 symptoms of hydrophobia, to be printed on the back of each 

 dog license. There is much useful information to be derived 

 by reading the back of one of these licenses. First, attention 

 is called to the fact that the law requires that every dog over 

 three months old shall be licensed, and that each licensed dog 

 shall wear a collar around his neck, with a plate upon which 

 the owner's name and the license number shall be engraved. 

 If this provision of the law were better enforced, and all un- 

 licensed, homeless, ownerless dogs, and dogs whose owners 

 did not provide collars prescribed by law, were humanely 

 destroyed, it would be a great safeguard to the public. Half 

 or two-thirds of the rabid dogs which have appeared in towns 

 and have bitten other dogs, animals or persons, have had no 

 collar, or at least no collar with a plate upon it to show who 

 owned the animal or whore it came from. 



Xcxt on the license is some information upon the treatment 

 of dogs and the diseases of dogs, which does not seem essen- 

 tial to a dog license. Following this is a description of the 

 symptoms of hydrophobia, which commences by stating that 

 when rabies does not prevail it is a rare disease, and when it 



