210 KENNEL SECRETS. 



should be properly regulated and faithfully given ; and 

 not a day be allowed to pass without it except for the 

 best of reasons. 



Hard and fast work beyond an occasional spurt for a 

 short distance is seldom, if ever, indicated even for the 

 fleetest of sporting dogs ; and certainly not if they are 

 overweight, and must be reduced in flesh. That reduction 

 must be slow always, and long easy walks for large dogs 

 constitute the required exercise. 



The fact should be in mind always that where dogs are 

 overweight because of too much fat, and eff"orts are made 

 to reduce it by means of fast work, heart trouble is very 

 liable to occur, the walls of that organ, no longer firm and 

 hard, becoming soft and flabby because of the withdrawal 

 of the fat. 



Dogs that are too fat, therefore, must have slow, steady, 

 and long continued work, be they sporting or non- 

 sporting. 



The baneful effects of too much fat are felt by dogs as 

 well as bitches, although of variable intensity. When the 

 amount of fat is excessive, for breeding purposes the 

 bitches are generally ruined by it, they becoming totally 

 barren. To dogs, however, the effects are, as a rule, less 

 serious, for they may be reproductive to a limited extent ; 

 yet their get are seldom more than indifferent specimens. 

 They lack tone and vigor, if not actual weaklings, and are 

 predisposed to disease, by reason of their delicacy. 



Rickets or an abnormal condition akin to it is account- 

 able for many deformities. This disease, however, cannot 

 be passed on to offspring, but in all cases in which it 

 exists there is some constitutional weakness or defect 

 which is transmissible ; consequently the get are predis- 

 posed to this and indeed many other constitutional diseases. 

 That is, because of rickets and the like in sire or dam, the 



