400 WALKING FOXHOUND PUPPIES. 



this village died of distemper with the exception of 

 my couple. My pups must have contracted the 

 disease from a neighbouring farmer's dog who died 

 of it in great agony with an abscess in his throat. 

 Possibly the adoption of some kind of muzzle would 

 prevent puppies from eating diseased matter. 



My belief in the necessity of giving hounds cooked 

 meat and rigorously abjuring it in a raw state, excited 

 ridicule here, but when the good result of such " faddy " 

 feeding was proved by the healthy condition of the 

 animals, the unbelievers acknowledged themselves 

 converted. Mills, in his Life of a Foxhoimd, tells us 

 that Ringwood, who appears to have been a fine hound, 

 was brought up solely on "sweet milk, meal and 

 broth " ; but I find that pups in hard exercise want 

 a generous supply of cooked paunch .as well as bones 

 for the development of their teeth, and that if they are 

 blown out with sloppy food, their internal arrangements 

 become disorganized. Besides, a hound cannot gallop 

 on meal alone. One of the greatest difficulties w^ith 

 which puppy walkers in small villages have to contend, 

 is in obtaining an adequate supply of paunches and 

 bones, for country butchers do not kill many animals 

 in the week, as there is little sale for meat. The 

 average villager purchases a joint for his ''Sunday's 

 dinner," which either lasts the whole week, or is 

 supplemented by scraps of meat, or even a '' bone pie " ! 

 An ox paunch is of course dressed and sold as tripe, 

 all sorts of pork scraps are made up into brawn, mutton 

 ditto into '' faggots," so that there is very little left for the 



