HOUSING OF DOGS. 75 



dom, they may be), yet that the evil is more than counter-ba- 

 lanced by the mechanical action of the bones cleaning away the 

 tartar that otherwise accumulates around them. No fear need be 

 entertained of their occasioning obstruction ; the power of their 

 gastric juices is equal to the total solution of the largest bones thev 

 can take down. I have seen a pointer of my own swallow the 

 shank bone of a leg of mutton, which he was unable, from its size 

 and strength to break. I am of opinion that bones are a healthy 

 addition to their food, and certainly from their soluble qualities 

 they are very nutritive. The stomach of the dog is as complete a 

 digester of bones as the iron screwed pot apparatus of Count 

 Rumford. 



THE HOUSING OF DOGS. 



This subject will occupy but little of my time, as I would hope 

 there are not many persons who would be inhuman enough to turn 

 an unoffending and faithful animal out without shelter during the 

 cold and damp of our nights^. Too many, however, err on the 

 other hand, by placing their dogs in close confined boxes or 

 houses, without sufficient ventilation. A wicker basket is the best 



' In charity, I would believe, that when persons do turn their dog out to 

 sleep in the open air, they conclude him to be naturally a nocturnal anima\ 

 and that therefore such exposure is natural to him ; but they are totally in 

 error: and even had he been so in his aboriginal state, yet artificial habits 

 and close domestication have so altered his nature, as to render him unfitted 

 to cope with cold and moisture without pain and danger. The dog, however, 

 really is not by natiure a nocturnal animal, like the fox, whose predacious 

 habits in search of fowls when at roost make night the especial season of his 

 prowlings ; and to which end nature has furnished him with a structural pecu- 

 liarity in his organs of vision, totally diflferent to that of the dog. The eye of 

 the fox presents a pupil like that of the cat, likewise a nocturnal animal, the 

 contractions of which are not circular, like those of the dog, or our own, but 

 are linear, and capable of extreme dilatation and contraction. The dog having 

 no such apparatus, was evidently intended to sleep during the night ; and as 

 in a state of nature he could furnish himself with a cavern, surely his master 

 ought to supply him with some shelter : if with a kennel, let the opening 

 incline to one side. 



