ANIMAL FOODS. 23 



As for fresh meats cooked for the table, unless of course 

 a perfect contempt for culinary laws is exhibited, they can 

 safely be regarded as quite well suited to the digestion of 

 dogs, also, as containing the most of the nutritive proper- 

 ties of these foods. And where dogs share the diet of 

 their masters, or in other words are fed on scraps from 

 the table, and the quantity of meat given them is ample, 

 it is scarcely necessary to consider the question of quality 

 or that of cooking. 



But considering the popular method of cooking meat 

 specially for dogs and the want of care which so many 

 exhibit in its application, the conclusion is inevitable that 

 under certain conditions of life they should be fed on raw 

 meat while those conditions last. 



That this may be accepted the fact is urged that no 

 matter how scientific the process of cooking, alterations 

 of a chemical nature are induced in meat and some of 

 its nutritive elements are wasted. Were man perfectly 

 familiar with all the inner workings of the dog's mech- 

 anism, the demands in the way of food and the peculiari- 

 ties of his organs concerned in digestion, then the problem 

 of supply required for the growth and health of the body 

 and to renew the loss from wear and tear, etc., might pos- 

 sibly be worked out. But the dietician has yet to enter 

 this province, and at present only rough estimates can be 

 made, and a very wide margin must be left to cover the 

 many conditions, fixed or accidental, of which little or 

 nothing is known. 



Thus far experience has shown the writer that bitches 

 in-pup which are occasionally allowed raw meat during 

 the periods of gestation and nursing are stronger and 

 healthier, give whelp to more vigorous puppies and prove 

 better support for the same, than bitches fed entirely on 

 cooked meat during these periods — that is, on meat 



