9^ KENNEL SECRETS. 



improves the bodily health, but without it good form, 

 health and vigor are absolutely impossible. And if these 

 facts have been impressed upon the minds of readers 

 the space devoted to this preamble will have been well 

 employed. 



Diverting the subject to puppies, obviously they can 

 be raised in large towns and cities, but, as with young 

 children, the country is pre-eminently the best place for 

 them until they are well on the way to maturity, because 

 of its superior hygienic advantages and opportunities for 

 greater freedom. It is, indeed, a fact that country-bred 

 puppies develop far better than those raised in cities, and 

 while the former generally show up plump, strong, active 

 and hardy, as often the latter are sadly deficient in these 

 eminent qualities. And for puppies which are to be 

 eventually trained for field work the country specially 

 recommends itself, for it abounds in common sights — 

 as cows, sheep, hens, pigeons, etc. — with which it is 

 very essential that they should be familiar before their 

 education commences, otherwise it must be an extremely 

 difficult task to teach them and hold them down to their 

 lessons. 



Puppies kept within doors and in small pens seldom if 

 ever develop properly, but go over on their legs and feet 

 and fall out of shape generally. Lack of exercise, which 

 prevents their muscles from growing and strengthening 

 as they ought, is largely responsible for these defects, but 

 not entirely, for impure air, want of sufficient sunshine 

 and other unhealthful influences are all active and tend to 

 produce them by undermining the constitution and open- 

 ing the door to rickets. The largest breeds are the first 

 to decline under these influences, and so difficult is it to 

 raise them except where the conditions are favorable and 

 abundant opportunities for exercise in pure air and sun- 



