90 DOGS : THEIR MANAGEMENT. 



hours. Animals not worked, but kept as favourites, or 

 allowed only to range at pleasure, should not have any 

 meat, nor be permitted to consume any large quantity of 

 fatty substances. Butter, fat, or greese, soon renders the 

 skin of the dog diseased and its body gross. Milk, fine 

 bread, cakes, or sugar, are better far for children, and can 

 be on the hurn^n race bestowed with advantage ; while 

 given to the brute they are apt to generate disorders, 

 which a long course of medicine will not in every case 

 eradicate. Beer, wine, or spirits, all of which the dog 

 can be induced to drink, show rather the master's igno- 

 rance than the creature's liking. Nice food, or that 

 which a human being would so consider, is in fact not 

 fitted to support the dog in health. It may appear offen- 

 sive to ladies when they behold their favourites gorge 

 rankly, but Nature has wisely ordained that her nume- 

 rous children should, by their difference of appetite, con- 

 sume the produce of earth. The dog, therefore, can 

 enjoy and thrive upon that which man thinks of with 

 disgust ; but our reason sees in this circumstance no facts 

 worthy of our exclamation. The animal seeking the 

 provender its Creator formed its appetite to relish, is not 

 necessarily filthy or unclean ; but could dogs write books, 

 probably the opinions of these beasts upon many of the 

 made dishes and tit-bits of the fashionable circles, would 

 be opposed to the ideas which delicate epicures entertain 

 concerning such luxurious fare. The spaniel which, 

 bloated with sweets, escapes from the drawing-room to 

 amuse itself with a blackened bone picked from a dung- 



