364 DOGS : THEIR MANAGEMENT. 



cruel to check than to promote them ; for the temporary 

 relief we obtain by causing them to cease, will certainly 

 be purchased with the life of the animal that enjoys so 

 dearly -bought a repose. 



The shriek of the bitch during the time when a pup 

 probably is being forced into the world, may harrow the 

 heart of an affectionate master, and his sympathies may 

 be wrought upon by beholding the convulsion which 

 stretches every fibre of her frame. The sounds may 

 grate upon the ear, and the spectacle may be terrible 

 to look upon for in dogs I have seen misery so power- 

 fully exemplified, that I do no wrong to any man, when 

 I suppose the picture would be piteous to his humanity 

 but it is not charity which would put a termination to 

 the pangs. Place the bitch, then, in a warm bath, and 

 the appearances almost instantaneously are changed. 

 The animal rejoices in the ease which a cessation of tor- 

 ture produces. No doubt she, for the time, luxuriates, 

 and her face expresses the sense of happiness she then 

 enjoys. But her fate is with the pleasure sealed ; and 

 she obtains a momentary ease to meet with a lingering, 

 or perhaps a frightful death, for I have known inflamma- 

 tion of the womb to follow the use of the warm bath. 

 The use of the warm bath is, during labor, at best a 

 mistake generated by ignorance ; and unfortunately it is 

 one of those errors which can rarely be afterwards re- 

 deemed ; for the weakness it induces is so great, that 

 the tonicity required in parturition is destroyed ; and this 

 no medicine can restore. 



