80 SECOND DIVISION OF THE 



ation and subsoil, and may be aggravated or increased by circumstances 

 over which we have no control. Some kennels are in low and damp situ- 

 ations, yet the hounds are free from all complaint ; and others, with the 

 stanchest dogs and under the best management, are continually sinking 

 under kennel lameness. 



Mr. R. T. Vyner was one of the first who scientifically treated on this 

 point, and taught us that clay is not by any means an objectionable soil to 

 build a kennel upon^ although so many pseudo-sportsmen are frightened 

 by the very name of it. 



He enters at once into his subject. " I am thoroughly convinced," says 

 he, " from my own experience, and, I may add, my own suffering, that the 

 disease of kennel lameness arises only from one cause, and that is an inju- 

 dicious and unfortunate selection of the spot for building. The kennel is 

 generally built on a sandbed, or on a sandstone rock, while the healthiest 

 grounds in England are on a stiff clay, and they are the healthiest because 

 they are the least porous. Although this may be contrary to the opinion 

 and prejudice of the majority of sportsmen, it is a fact that cannot be 

 contradicted. 



" Through a light and friable soil, such as sand and sandstone, a vapour, 

 more or less dense, is continually exhaling and causing a perpetual damp, 

 which produces that fearful rheumatism which goes by the name of kennel 

 lameness, while the kennels that are built on a clay soil, a soil of an im- 

 pervious nature, are invariably healthy. 



" I could," he adds, " enumerate twenty kennels to prove the effect 

 the invariable effect of the existence of the disease on the one part, and 

 of the healthiness of the situation on the other. I turn particularly to 

 Her Majesty's kennel at Ascot, the arches of which were laid under the 

 very foundation stones, and yet little or no amendment has ever taken 

 place in the healthiness and comfort of the dogs. It is necessary to select 

 a sound and healthy situation when about to erect a kennel, and' that sound 

 and healthy situation can be met with alone on a strong impervious clay 

 soil. We must have no fluid oozing through the walls or the floor of the 

 kennel, and producing damp and unhealthy vapours, such as we find in the 

 sandbed." With regard to this there can be no error. 



Nimrod, in his excellent treatise on Kennel Lameness, asks, whether it 

 does not appear that this disease is on the increase. He asks, " How 

 it is that neither Beckford nor Somerville says one word that clearly applies 

 to the disease ; and no one, however learned he might be in canine >patho- 

 logy, has been able clearly to define the disease, much less to discover a 

 remedy for it ?" 



All that Mr. Elaine says on the matter amounts only to this : " The 

 healthiness of the situation on which any kennel is to be built is an im- 

 portant consideration. It is essential that it should be both dry and airy, 

 and it should also be warm. A damp kennel produces rheumatism in dogs, 

 which shows itself sometimes by weakness in the loins, but more frequently 

 by lameness in the shoulders, known under the name of kennel lameness." 



Mr. Elaine illustrates this by reference to his own experience. " There 

 is no disease, with the exception of distemper and mange, to which dogs 

 are so liable as to a rheumatic affection of some part of the body. It pre- 

 sents almost as many varieties in the dog as it does in man ; and it has some 

 peculiarities observable in the dog only. Rheumatism never exists in a 

 dog without affecting the bowels. There will be inflammation or painful 



