126 EVERYTHING ABOUT DOGS. 



easily-digested nourishment, since the stomach is aft'ected with the rest of the 

 body, and what it could easily assimilate during health, it has no means of deal- 

 ing with during sickness. 



Dog biscuits and all farinaceous solids are to be avoided now. A little gruel 

 made with fine oatmeal and boiling milk will usually be taken, especially if not 

 too thick. Again, though we dispense with meat, gravy may be offered and soup 

 made by boiling bones. As the animal regains his strength meat may be recom- 

 mended, by slow degress, but it should be thoroughly cooked, and it might also 

 be minced with advantage, as the dog. even in sickness, is prone to his natural 

 habit of "bolting r ' food. 



Another excellent food we have found for invalid dogs is the family rice pud- 

 ding rice baked with milk. A dog will generally accept this and it forms both 

 a satisfying and nutritious meal. 



Keeping them eating is the great trouble and eat they must, in order to sus- 

 tain sufficient strength to get through this trying ordeal. When the dog quits 

 eating and refuses food, try and coax him to eat by getting and cooking him some- 

 thing inew and delicate that he has not been used to getting ordinarily. I have 

 often gone out and bought a quail, or some delicacy like this, and he would eat it 

 when he had refused everything else. Gravy made with flour in it, from stewed 

 chicken giblets, they will often eat. 



ft requires patience on the owner's part and too much care and kindness can 

 hardly lie exercised, as they materially help and encourage the dog to pull through. 

 Some dogs give up much easier than others, for a dog with distemper is a very 

 dog, arid here is where you can do them a lot of good in keeping up their 

 courage by the attention you bestow on them. The after results of distemper are 

 numerous and much to b<3 dreaded, especially in cases that have not been property 

 treated. Chorea is the worst of all and so frequently follows distemper. A splen- 

 did thing to give as an after medicine is to build the dog up by a course of treat- 

 ment of Sergeant s Condition Pills, Clayton's or Dent's, say for a few weeks. By 

 this I mean after your dog is over distemper, yet weak and very much run do\\n. 

 I invariably keep my dogs on these pills for a few weeks until they are again 

 themselves, and look and act like well dogs. 



Distemper is not necessarily fatal if proper care and treatment is given, and 

 when I have discovered it in iny kennels, I do not give up and think they will die, 

 but 1 go to work at the first signs and try, and expect to save them. The careful 

 nursinp; and attention is highly important, and as to this, every authority on the- 

 subject will' agree. The dog has to go through a regular siege and cannot be cured 

 in a few days by any medicine, and too much medicine would be even worse than 

 none at all here is where the good nursing comes in. If you do this part all right 

 and can keep the dog eating enough of the proper food to keep its strength up, 

 and the surroundings and care are all property looked after, the dog need not die. 



There is another important point, and. that is in regard to a dog's bedding. The 

 more frequently this can be changed during sickness the better. 



When I have taken a lot of dogs to a bench show, my own and others; espe- 

 cially if I knew they had never had distemper, I have always made it a rule to 

 give these well dogs either one or the other of these remdies during the show, and 

 for a few days after, as a safeguard against their contracting distemper at the 

 show, and with only one exception in many years of exhibiting, I have never lost 

 a dog from its being at a show. 1 believe, if this was made a practice by all 

 exhibitors at dog shows, that we would not hear 01 so many cases of distemper 

 as the after-result of exhibiting. 



