22 KENNEL SECRETS. 



tion invariably suffers, and as a rule the victims are low 

 in flesh no matter how wisely and generously they are 

 fed. 



The question of preparation of animal food deserves a 

 passing notice. Undoubtedly flesh can be rendered more 

 digestible by the means of cooking, and where that is 

 rightly done, all things considered, it can justly be held 

 as best under the usual conditions of life. But when the 

 processes of cooking are faulty and the way in which they 

 :are conducted is indifferent, speaking generally, it is safe 

 to say that meat in its raw state would be better suited to 

 digestion, provided it was in a form which rendered it 

 easily accessible to the digestive fluids — that is, if it was 

 lorn or bruised and in small pieces. 



Boiling is the method usually resorted to in kennels, it 

 Ibeing the most convenient. Aside from the faults of 

 •practice it is open to some quite decided objections, the 

 •most pronounced of which is, that it renders the muscular 

 fibre difflcult of digestion whether the same is a mass of 

 hard strings, as it were, or finely divided. Soups in which 

 the meat has softened down and " boiled away " are highly 

 nutritious, yet although broken up in minute fragments 

 the muscular fibre is scarcely more digestible than it 

 was while in one mass ; moreover these fragments are 

 now enveloped in the gelatine of the meat, — extracted by 

 the long continued high heat, — and this to some extent 

 prevents their being acted on by the digestive fluids. 



Notwithstanding this lessened digestibility of the meat, 

 dogs are capable of disposing of these soups to good advan- 

 tage if the quantity is properly restricted, but if in excess 

 much of them is unaffected during their journey through 

 the body, and is therefore wasted ; and, besides, the diges- 

 tive organs are very likely to rebel and become deranged 

 in consequence of the imposition. 



