278 TRAINING THE HUNTING DOG 



other diet. The dog is carnivorous, and therefore he 

 needs a meat diet. The ill effect of the latter, when 

 such there is, is not from the meat diet of itself, but 

 from over-feeding. In a state of nature the dog gets 

 his meals at uncertain times, perhaps days apart. 

 Once a day is quite often enough to feed him, yet the 

 average dog owner is prone to judge of the dog's 

 needs by his own, and therefore he feeds the dog 

 three times a day with a few morsels, perhaps, be- 

 tween times. 



The dog's digestive organs are not adapted to the 

 assimilation of a vegetable diet. On this point, the 

 following, taken from a paper read before the New 

 England Kennel Club, Boston, July, 1884, by Dr. 

 Billings, will be read with interest: "No matter in 

 what way we look at it, the dog's ancestors were car- 

 nivorous, and the nature of their descendants has not 

 changed in this regard, though, as in everything else, 

 man has succeeded in changing it to a degree. Still, 

 a carnivorus he was, is and ever will be. He is not a 

 masticator. He has not a grinding tooth in his head. 

 He has nothing but biting and tearing teeth in the 

 front, and crushers in the posterior part of the jaws. 

 He takes no pleasure in eating as the chewers i. e. t 



