12 A MANUAL OF TOY DOGS 



tions ; but every bitch who is anything at all of a mother 

 will manage them perfectly. Next comes the licking 

 of the puppies, which have been enclosed each in its 

 membranous bag full of liquid (the liquor amnia), 

 and are consequently dripping wet. Here is the crucial 

 test : a good mother licks her babies until they are 

 warm and dry, then feeds them, and snuggles down 

 with them into a contented heap of intense happiness. 

 A bad mother, on the contrary, leaves her poor infants 

 to dry as best they can, a process which invariably 

 ends in their developing a kind of infantile skin com- 

 plaint, which appears like a scab of cheesy substance 

 attached to the roots of the hair. It grows away with 

 the hair by degrees, and gets well without treatment, 

 but is ugly and disfiguring for the time being, and a sad 

 evidence of incompetence on the part of the mother. 



When the family have settled down, and the puppies 

 are dry and comfortable, it is time to give them a little 

 attention. Have a saucer full of nice, warm milk- 

 gruel, made with patent groats as daintily as for an 

 invalid, and let the mother drink it, which she will 

 be sure to do with gratitude ; she may have more 

 at intervals during the first day. Then roll away the 

 soiled folds of sheet from under her and the litter, 

 which can now be done without disturbing them, and 

 leave them cosily ensconced on the clean, warm blanket, 

 which has been all the time underneath. 



A little later the mother may be put out into the 

 garden for a few minutes, not more than two or three ; 

 but she must not be allowed to get chilled. After the 

 first day she should go out for a little walk morning 

 and afternoon, the time of her absence to be gradually 

 lengthened as the puppies grow older. 



Until they begin to crawl, valuable toy puppies are 

 much safer and better upstairs in a big chair as described, 

 or in a flat basket with a folded blanket at the bottom 

 set upon the chair, than they can possibly be in any 

 stable or in the kitchen premises, for, no matter how 

 warm, such places are draughty too. There is abso- 



