FEEDING OF DOGS. 173 



this mode of feeding will undoubtedly tend to increase them: 

 such food is therefore proper for sporting dogs, for grey- 

 hounds, foxhounds, and harriers. When, therefore, raw 

 meat, as horse flesh, can be procured sweet and fresh, it not 

 only increases the animal ardour, but it will go the farthest 

 of any in point of economy, by nourishing most. When it is 

 at all putrid, dressing considerably restores it. 



At what periods dogs ought to be fed is frequently likewise 

 a matter of consideration, but which is easily and satisfacto- 

 rily concluded upon, when considered in a similar point of 

 view with the foregoing subjects. In a state of nature, even 

 a daily meal among dogs must be very precarious: for, in 

 some situations, vegetable food cannot be obtained, and then 

 the hunting down of other animals, or the meeting with the 

 offal or refuse of what may have been hunted by others, must 

 be the principal support. For this reason. Nature has kindly 

 and wisely fitted a dog with a stomach that digests his food, 

 particularly of the animal kind, very slowly ; so that a full 

 meal of flesh is not digested in less than twenty-four hours. 

 Those, therefore, who feed their dogs on animal matter never 

 need feed them more than once a day ; nor do dogs require 

 to be fed oftener if meal be given, when fully fed on it. 

 But it must be remembered that, under a life of confinement 

 and art, where all the functions are weakened, as they must 

 of necessity be in those dogs who are petted and indulged, 

 it is better to feed them in smaller quantities twice a day. If 

 fed once only, they become heavy and sleepy, and lose much 

 of their vivacity. This may elicit an observation, that 

 hard-worked dogs, as soon as fed, should be shut up, to en- 

 courage sleep. Digestion goes on better sleeping than 

 wakinf>': and more nutriment is obtained from the food in 

 this way, than when an animal is suffered to run about after 



eatmg. 



It may be also not improper to notice the unnecessary fear 

 that many persons encourage relative to the giving of bones 

 to dogs. Except by those of fish, or of the legs and wings 

 of poultry, which, as being hollow, break into splinters, I 



