20 A MANUAL OF TOY DOGS 



cutlet minced, than to give a much larger dinner of rice 

 and biscuit flooded with milk or soup. Big, sloppy 

 meals are most undesirable, and the last meal at night, 

 above all, should be dry. Half a penny sponge cake 

 makes an excellent supper for a toy dog, or a couple of 

 Osborne biscuits. Toy dogs should never be given any 

 biscuit containing oatmeal or Indian corn meal, or 

 peameal. These two are much used in dog-biscuit 

 making, on account of their cheapness, and they are both 

 too heating for toy dogs, and, in quantity, indigestible, 

 although oatmeal is occasionally valuable, as in the form 

 of groats, to be made into milk gruel and given to bitches 

 after confinement. Rice, well boiled, is used as a staple, 

 to give bulk to meals, by all breeders of Yorkshire 

 terriers, and it is a valuable food, for this purpose, for it 

 does not fatten, and is as easily digested as any cereal 

 can be. Although I advocate small, dry meals as against 

 large, sloppy ones, I do not mean to say that a certain 

 amount of bulk is not desirable it is, for without it 

 there would not be the natural stimulus of distension 

 to the intestinal canal. But although the dog has a 

 very large gullet and can swallow, and wishes to swallow, 

 very large quantities as compared to its size, its stomach 

 is not so very large in proportion, and the juste milieu 

 enough and not too much is easy to ascertain. Eating 

 between meals is quite as bad for dogs as for babies. 

 They should be fed regularly, and restrained from picking 

 up bits out of doors which may be poisoned, and are 

 sure to be unwholesome." Many dogs have a shocking 

 habit of scavenging, which often means that they are 

 anaemic and harbour worms ; if a tonic and worm dose 

 does not mend matters, a muzzle will. 



A toy dog of 5 Ibs. or 6 Ibs., which has a biscuit at 

 breakfast time, a varied and tempting meal of meat or 

 fish at lunch, and a piece of stale sponge cake in the 

 evening, is being reasonably fed, and should have a 

 healthy appetite. It is a mistake to feed only once a 

 day, as such treatment is only suitable for dogs so far 

 in a state of nature that they can gorge themselves to 



