DOGS BREEDING AT PUBERTY. 477 



it is beyond the limits of this work. To breeders we would say ; 

 ».f you desire full and comprehensible information on the subject of 

 reproduction, purchase a work known as " Acton on the Repro- 

 ductive Organs" published by Lindsay and Blackiston, of Phila- 

 delphia. 



The argument that g^n-shy and otherwise nervous and defec- 

 tive animals are produced by adult parents does not militate against 

 our statement. It must be remembered likewise, that any animal 

 in excess of six years of age is unfit for breeding purposes, having 

 passed the prime of life, and is consequently in the descending 

 scale where there is no provision of nature for other acts than that 

 of nourishment ; waste now even exceeding repair. Bitches are 

 better constituted to bear young at six years of age than males are 

 to procreate. Consequently a dog is truly valuable for stock pur- 

 poses for two and one-half or three years ; or more correctly, five 

 seasons, allowing the bitches to be in heat twice each year. The 

 bitch on the contrary is capable of giving full impress of the parent 

 for four years or more ; approximately, nine heats. The reason 

 of this difference is solely due to^the reflex action upon the nervous 

 system, which takes place in the male in consequence of sexual 

 indulgence. This becomes more marked in stoc^c dogs, which line 

 several bitches in a season. But the female does not meet with 

 the same proportionate shock through sexual congress, hence the 

 disorganization of nerve material is less rapid than in the opposite 

 sex. 



Lit^ ay good rules the above may have exceptions, yet the fact 

 remains the same. Therefore the safe rules to be obser\-ed are : 



Firsi.* Use no bitches for breeding purposes except between 

 the a^es of two and six and one-half years if the fullest and best 

 features of the stock are to be transmitted. 



Second. Use no dog for stock purposes who is under the age 

 of three years, or over five and one-half with expectation that the 

 best qualities — particularly the intellectual — of the animal will be 

 reproduced in Lis offspring. 



* It has been «r:(-i<;d that young mothers, as among J ersey cattle, raise the 

 best offspring. Dogs and cattle do not admit of like comparison, as their anatomi-. 

 cal, anrt more paiucularly their physiological peculiarities are widely different. 

 However, bitches between two and three years of age do make the best mothers; 

 but not yi vHftt . 



