86 THE AMERICAN HUNTING DOG 



will be less than for an older dog, and you will 

 enjoy many delicious moments in watching his 

 infantile poses and antics, but your risk of losing 

 him from distemper or some other ailment is much 

 greater than with a dog a year old. 



It depends principally upon individual tempera- 

 ment. Some men love children and pets and get 

 hours of enjoyment out of caring for them and 

 playing with them; others are more self-centred 

 and are easily irritated by the doings of irrespon- 

 sible pups and mischievous children. The former 

 class, fortunately in the great majority, form the 

 principal prop of the great institution of matri- 

 mony, by which the world do move ; the latter, con- 

 stituting the bulk of the readers of smart and 

 snappy magazines, are the main pillars of the sa- 

 cred institution of alimony. To which class you 

 personally belong should decide whether you 

 should own a pup or pups, or should invest in a 

 young grown dog. Puppies are a joy forever; 

 they are also an intolerable nuisance. Like chil- 

 dren, there is something infinitely tender and ap- 

 pealing about them that tugs at the very heart 

 strings of mankind ; and, like children, they want 

 the earth with a stone wall around it, they strew 

 a path of ruin and disorder behind them, and they 

 inevitably contract a variety of infantile diseases. 



