TREATMENT OF WHELPS. 273 



at their disposal, it will materially aid their growth. But if 

 reared with this adventitious aid, which is much better than 

 stove heat, because more regular, they require extra care if 

 removed to a walk at a farmer's, or to other quarters, at ten 

 or twelve weeks old ; and it is well at this stage to consider 

 what is the best mode of proceeding upon this point. That 

 is to say, it is better to send the whelps out into the country 

 ' to walk,' as it is termed, or to keep them at home in kennel ? 

 My answer to this question is this, that anything is better than 

 confinement in a close unhealthy box or yard ; but that if an 

 airy situation can be selected where the whelps can have the 

 run of a yard or other inclosure twenty or thirty feet long, 

 they had far better remain under the eye of the breeder, and 

 for the following reasons : In the first place, few farmers or 

 butchers really take any interest in the greyhound for its own 

 sake, they only rear them as a favour to the party giving them 

 in charge. Secondly, if any disease attacks the puppies, much 

 time is lost before the proper remedy can be applied. Thirdly, 

 the food is not given regularly, and seldom of sufficiently good 

 quality, and it is not carefully boiled, from which cause tapeworm 

 is so common among dogs reared ( at walk.' Fourthly, they are 

 liable to all sorts of accidents from kicks, &c. Fifthly, they lie 

 about in the wet and cold, contracting thereby rheumatism, and also 

 from cold habitually setting up their backs till they grow into that 

 form called the e wheel-back.' Sixthly and lastly, they are always 

 getting into mischief and receiving severe punishment for so 

 doing, by which their spirit is broken, and they lose that fire 



