230 DOGS : THEIR MANAGEMENT. 



benefited by a prolonged abstinence. I have kept a dog 

 four-and-twenty hours without food, but never longer, 

 and then only when the animal has been brought to me 

 with a tale about its not eating. The report, then, is 

 assurance that food has been offered, and the inference is 

 that the stomach is loaded. A little rest enables it to 

 get rid of its contents, and in some measure to recover 

 its tone. The dog, as a general rule, does well on one 

 meal a day ; afterward, the food is regularly weighed, 

 and nothing more than the quantity is permitted. This 

 quantity may be divided into three or four meals, and 

 given at stated periods, so that the last is eaten at night. 

 When thus treated, animals, which I am assured would 

 touch nothing, have soon become possessors of vigorous 

 appetites. At the same time, exercise and the cold bath 

 every morning is ordered ; and either tonic or gentle 

 sedatives, with alkalies and vegetable bitters, are admi- 

 nistered. The following are the ordinary stomach-pills, 

 and do very well for the generality of cases : 



Extract of hyoscyamus . Sixteen grains. 



Sodse carb Half an ounce. 



Extract of gentian . . . Half an ounce. 



Ferri carb. Half an ounce. 



Make into sixteen, thirty, or eight pills, and give two 

 daily. 



The reader, however, will not depend upon any one 

 compound, for stomach disease is remarkably capricious. 

 Sometimes one thing and sometimes another does a great 



