8 KENNEL SECRETS. 



physical condition. Considering the fact that this food 

 tends to produce firmness of muscle with an absence of 

 superfluous fat, while vegetable food on the other hand 

 tends to increase the deposition of fat, manifestly in many 

 instances of underweight it is advisable to give less meat 

 and more vegetable food. In some instances, also, the 

 requirements are the reverse of these, and, as always with 

 bitches that are too fat, it is necessary to feed largely if 

 not entirely on meat until good form is restored. 



This, by the way, bears specially on bitches that are not 

 in-pup. And yet such treatment would be safe for those 

 that were, provided with them the increase in the amount 

 of meat was made gradually and there was a corresponding 

 gradual increase in the amount of exercise. But lest the 

 reader draw wrong conclusions here it is urged that 

 assuming the bitch to be one that had been accustomed 

 to a diet consisting of about one-third meat, to put her 

 on to all meat while she was in whelp would be hazardous 

 were she afterward given the same amount of exercise 

 which she had been having and no more. Furthermore, 

 during gestation a bitch could not safely bear the amount 

 of work that a dog fed entirely on meat must have had she 

 been given but an average amount of exercise up to that 

 period. 



In estimating the daily quantity of meat an allowance 

 must be made for the season of the year, since the diges- 

 tive and all other functions of the body vary under the 

 influence of cold and heat — the former stimulating them 

 and the latter depressing them. And manifestly were these 

 variations ignored and the same quantity of meat given daily 

 all the year around, diarrhoea and other disturbances of the 

 digestive organs would be likely to occur in hot weather ; 

 moreover, the tendency to skin diseases attended with 

 intolerable itching would then be decidedly greater, in 



