74 A MANUAL OF TOY DOGS 



Chest Diseases. The worst-sounding coughs are 

 often the least important, and may pass off in a few 

 days without treatment, but a bronchial rattling in the 

 throat calls for care. Bronchitis in toy dogs must be 

 treated exactly as in children, and, needless to say, the 

 dog must not go out until the acute stage is passed. 

 Most clean dogs will go to a box of earth in a cellar. 

 A bronchitis kettle must be kept going in the room, 

 and the patient will need an invalidish diet and much 

 petting and amusement to carry him through the dull 

 hours of discomfort. Dogs have congestion of the 

 lungs, pleurisy, pneumonia, just as people do, and need 

 the same careful nursing. Medicine in such cases is 

 usually unnecessary, because it worries the patient and 

 can do little good. A mild fever mixture may be pre- 

 scribed by the vet, who should always be called in the 

 moment the breathing goes wrong. Dulness, lassitude, 

 shivering, and a high temperature the clinical ther- 

 mometer is of all things needed here with troubled 

 breathing, are symptoms of the highest importance, 

 and skilled aid should be immediately called to them, 

 The amateur cannot diagnose these lung and chest 

 troubles. 



Stomach Coughs. Very dreadful coughs are some- 

 times heard proceeding entirely from the stomach. For 

 these a little course of indigestion treatment often does 

 wonders. Or, again, coughing may be caused by a 

 fish-bone or something similar in the throat, though 

 this is the rarest of all causes in the dog, owing to his 

 possessing a most tremendous gullet, quite out of pro- 

 portion to his size. 



Shivering. Shivering is a bad trick some dogs ac- 

 quire, and others have by nature. It generally, if 

 unaccompanied by a high temperature, means nothing 

 whatever, unless it be nerves. But, short of the Weir 

 Mitchell treatment, I imagine nothing benefits these 

 latter more than a mild scolding, with admonitions " not 

 to be so silly." 



