ON REARING PUPS 15 



it, tumbling into it and getting themselves in a mess, 

 to dry all sour and disagreeable, but hold their little 

 heads one by one as they lap, for they will nod into the 

 saucer and send the milk flying. 



As soon as the puppies are strong on their legs, they 

 need more exercise and fun than the run can allow 

 them, and now is the time to take them off the carpets, 

 which they will never respect in after life if they have 

 been allowed to treat them evilly as elderly babies. It 

 is not a bad plan to let them live in the kitchen from 

 this time forth, various things being provisional. One 

 is, that the presiding genius will see to their little meals 

 under your supervision ;* that is, you feed them four 

 times a day, and she or he undertakes to see that no 

 one else does so. Another, that the kitchen opens into 

 the, or a, garden, and that the puppies can run there 

 in the sunshine, in warm weather, and so insensibly 

 learn manners ; yet another, that it is a warm, draught- 

 less place, with a nice corner -for their sleeping basket. 

 Some folks, whose lower regions do not answer this 

 description, or whose servants are not amenable, may 

 have an occupied stable at command, where the puppies 

 can have a loose box or stall. This plan I do not re- 

 commend, for toy pups do far better in constant human 

 companionship ; but it, or the alternative one of 

 keeping them in a room with an oilcloth floor, are all 

 that offer themselves, failing the desirable kitchen. I 

 have known toy pups do splendidly in a sunny little 

 room, floored with cork carpet, provided with cosy 

 sleeping boxes, and opening into a terrace-wa].k, where 

 on al) fine and sunny days they were allowed to play ; 

 but they were not too much left to themselves, and 

 their apartment was carefully looked after, and brush 

 and sawdust-pan kept going, just as, in my kitchen, the 

 servants hasten to remove any unbecoming traces of 

 their presence. This period, while toy pups are too 

 young to be trained, too old for their mother to clean 

 them up, and also so young as to require warmth and 

 constant watching, is the troublesome one in their live's 



