t ^? fihrnJl 



iiilftlfe 



KENNEL SECRETS. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE NATURAL DIET. 



Men differ as to the origin of the dog, but all agree 

 that he is of the family of carnivora and that he was a 

 fiesh-eating beast in his wild state. Admitting this em- 

 inently plausible theory the question at once arises, Has 

 domestication created or developed in him the power, 

 which his master possesses in an eminent degree, of 

 accommodating himself to changes of foods as to other 

 altered conditions and thereby rendered him capable of 

 subsisting quite as well on a mixed diet, of vegetable 

 and animal substances, as he once did on a diet exclu- 

 sively animal .-* Scientific reasoning and experience 

 answer in the affirmative ; yet this solution is not uni- 

 versally accepted, and there are many who, arguing 

 mainly from structural peculiarities, insist that he is 

 purely a flesh-eater still and that animal foods alone arc 

 suited to his requirements. 



3 



