76 A MANUAL OF TOY DOGS 



than when the stomach is empty. Presently come 

 convulsions, and constant shrieking ; then the limbs 

 stick out and are perfectly stiff and rigid. Even at 

 this stage the dog can often be saved if means are at 

 hand. Never be without a bottle of syrup of chloral 

 in the house ; it will keep indefinitely. First make the 

 dog sick. Use sulphate of zinc in water, or weak 

 mustard and warm water, and give plenty of this latter. 

 The best way is by putting it in a phial, and running 

 it down the throat by way of a pouch of lower lip 

 diawn out from the teeth at the angle of the mouth. 

 As soon as the patient has been sick, give a teaspoonful 

 of the syrup of chloral in water. This is the antidote 

 to strychnine. If you cannot wait to make the patient 

 sick, give the chloral at once but give it : and the dose 

 may be repeated every two hours until the convulsions 

 cease. For a tiny pup or dog under 5 Ibs. the dose may 

 be halved. Recovery from strychnine is very rapid, and 

 it leaves, as a rule, no ill effects, though there is a wide- 

 spread belief, and a mistaken one, that it subsequently 

 affects the kidneys. 



All the other kinds of poison dogs are likely to get 

 or be given work as irritants, and these need veterinary 

 diagnosis. Salt, I may here remark, is so violent and 

 irritating a purgative to the dog that it is next door to 

 a poison, and the effects of castor oil in his intestine 

 are not so very far behind. Constant drugging is a 

 thing as much to be avoided in dogs as in their owners, 

 and I cannot too strongly deprecate the foolish practice 

 foolish or worse of giving doses of castor oil after 

 shows, or as so - called prophylactics preventives of 

 illness. If a dog has been much confined at a show, 

 and is likely to be irregular in consequence, a little pure 

 olive oil with his dinner (not the nut oil often sold by 

 grocers as olive oil) will do no harm, although a dinner 

 of oatmeal gruel or boiled sheep's liver would be much 

 more sensible and act better ; if he seems well and 

 lively, leave him alone. Some people actually go the 

 length of dosing their puppies with castor oil at in- 



