28 MANAGEMENT OF HOUNDS. 



bitches, and provide some wet nurses for the others if 

 they are of a favourite sort. A terrier v^ill bring up two 

 as a makeshift, but I generally prefer a hound about 

 whose own whelps you are not over particular, coming in 

 at the same time with a favourite bitch, and you may 

 then save nearly all the litter, at least eight or nine be- 

 tween the two. 



Bitches sometimes produce a great many at a litter. 

 I had one that brought into the world the extraordinary 

 number of seventeen, but she died from exhaustion. 

 Once coupling is sufficient if the bitch is put to the dog 

 when at the turn of her heat. When the whelps are a 

 few days old the dew claws should be cut off with a sharp 

 pair of scissors, and a bit of the tail. 



Puppies are very subject to worms, which, if not de- 

 stroyed, will prevent their growth and often produce fatal 

 fits. You may give them occasionally a dessert spoonful 

 of linseed oil when a fortnight old, and when a month or 

 six weeks old, if the worms are not destroyed, add a tea- 

 spoonful of spirits of turpentine to the oil, and give it in 

 the morning fasting. As soon as the puppies can lap let 

 them have some milk and their oatmeal mixed together 

 three times a day, which will relieve the mother. Give 

 it them warm, and remove what they do not eat a£ once. 



There is a little white louse by which puppies are 

 generally tormented; they form into bunches on the 

 neck and back, and will produce mange unless speedily 

 removed. Rape oil, thickened with sulphur to the con- 

 sistency of cream, will destroy them, and not injure either 

 the whelps or their mother. I have heard of tobacco 

 water and other things being used for this purpose, but 

 there is no necessity for any such noxious remedies. If 



