24 KENNEL SECRETS. 



cooked specially for them. The reason for the superior 

 qualities is of course problematical, but it would seem that 

 either raw meat was more easily digested by them and 

 more readily converted with less waste into materials for 

 building, for renovation of the body, etc., than cooked 

 meat, or that raw meat contained highly important ele- 

 ments in better forms or more correct proportions for the 

 work in which they were engaged, and to support them 

 while doing it, than cooked meat. 



Experience has also shown that in many morbid states 

 of the system not only is raw meat more acceptable to the 

 digestive organs, but recovery takes place much more rap- 

 idly under its use than it does under the use of cooked 

 meat. And another product of experience is the fact that 

 puppies to which raw meat is given often and judiciously, 

 thrive better, grow in structure with greater rapidity, 

 assume more massive proportions and are less frequently 

 ailing than those given cooked meat only, although the 

 quantity of meat is the same in both instances. 



But there is a bitter prejudice against the giving of 

 uncooked meat to dogs because of the parasites which it 

 sometimes contains. Beyond doubt this danger exists, 

 for nations habituated to the use of raw meat are notori- 

 ous harborers of tapeworms ; but still the writer believes 

 that much greater alarm is felt than is justifiable. Man is 

 as easily infected as dogs, yet among people of civilized 

 countries cases of tapeworms are never frequent, — in fact 

 they are rare except in imagination, in which pictures of 

 them are drawn by pretenders to medical skill, who have 

 methods of their own for deluding their patients. And 

 considering this rarity, also that cooking as often applied 

 will not destroy the vitality of these parasites, raw 

 meat cannot be nearly as fierce a menace as generally 

 reputed. 



