278 DOGS I THEIR MANAGEMENT. 



THE RECTUM. 



PILES. The dog is very subject to these annoyances 

 in all their various forms ; for the posterior intestine of 

 the animal seems to be peculiarly susceptible of disease. 

 When enteritis exists the rectum never escapes, but is 

 very frequently the seat of the most virulent malice of 

 the disorder. There are reasons why such should be the 

 case. The dog has but a small apology for what should 

 be a caecum, and the colon I assume to be entirely want- 

 ing. The guts, which in the horse are largest, in the 

 canine species are not characterised by any difference of 

 bulk ; and however compact may be the food on which 

 the dog subsists, nevertheless a proportionate quantity of 

 its substance must be voided. If the excrement be less 

 than in beasts of herbivorous natures, yet there being 

 but one small receptacle in which it can be retained, the 

 effects upon that receptacle are more concentrated, and 

 the consequences therefore are very much more violent. 

 The dung of the horse and ox is naturally moist, and 

 only during disease is it ever in a contrary condition. 

 Costiveness is nearly always in some degree present in 

 the dog. During health the animal's bowels are never 

 relaxed ; but the violent straining it habitually employs 

 to expel its faeces would alone suggest the injury to 

 which the rectum is exposed, even if the inclination to 

 swallow substances which in their passage are likely to 

 cause excoriation did not exist. The grit, dirt, bone, and 

 filth that dogs will, spite of every precaution, manage to 



