54 KENNEL SECRETS. 



these are the hours set by most of the advocates of the sys- 

 tem — and the puppies would be without food not less than 

 twelve hours. This would be none too long were they 

 allowed concentrated and hearty foods that would "stay 

 by " them during the greater part of this time, but their 

 digestive organs will not at first bear food of this sort, 

 nor in fact any other kind in quantity sufficient to occupy 

 the stomach more than two or three hours, consequently 

 long before the morning feeding this organ must crave 

 food, and after it begins to do so the system generally 

 puffers from the deprivation. 



For a time the morning meal acting as a spur to the 

 flagging powers would wholly restore them, yet this result 

 is scarcely to be expected always, for were they to decline 

 regularly every night some permanent loss in vigor would 

 more than likely occur. The stomach, also, would be 

 quite sure to rebel in time and thereafter do its work less 

 promptly and well. Again, there deserves to be consid- 

 ered the danger of chilling during the long cold nights, 

 and this is always the greatest where the stomach is 

 empty, for then the fires of life are burning low. 



This hasty glance must be conclusive when coupled 

 with the knowledge, which all surely have, of the fact 

 that even for the matured too long intervals between 

 meals hazard digestion and strength, and the danger is 

 greatly intensified where the subjects of the deprivation 

 are very young. 



But this is by no means all that can be said in opposi- 

 tion to the three-meals-a-day system. Follow that, and 

 give the puppies all the food which they require for tissue 

 and bone building, etc., and they must take more into 

 their stomachs at these meals than they can properly 

 digest and assimilate. In a word, they must gorge them- 

 selves — and this is one of the most ruinous practices in 

 which they can be indulged. 



