soon renders the skin of the dog diseased, and its body gross. 

 Milk, fine bread, cakes, or siigar, are better fare for children ; 

 given to the brute, they are apt to generate disorder, which a 

 long course of medicine ■will not in eveiy case eradicate. Nice 

 food, or that which a human being would so consider, is, in 

 fact, not fitted to support the dog in health. It may appear 

 ofiensiye to ladies when tliey behold their favourites gorge 

 ranWy, but Nature has wisely ordained that her numerous 

 children should, by their difierence of appetite, consume the 

 produce of the earth. The dog, therefore, can enjoy and thrive 

 on that which man thinks of with disgust ; bat our reason sees 

 in this circumstance no fact worthy of our exclamation. The 

 animal seeking the provender its Creator formed it to relish is 



not raecessariZi/ unclean The spaniel which, bloated mth 



sweets, escapes from the drawing-room to amuse itself with a 

 bone picked from a dunghill, follows but the inclination of its 

 kind, and, whUe tearing with its teeth the dirt-begrimed morsel, 



it is, according to its nature, daintily employed An 



occasional bone, and even a little dirt, are beneficial to the 

 canine race ; while food nicely minced, and served on plates, is 

 calculated to do harm. Rich and immoderate living fattens to 

 excess, destroys activity, renders the bowels costive, and causes 

 the teeth to be encrusted with tartar." 



First, concerning the soi-t of food that should be given to 

 house-dogs, little or big. 



Meat, when allowed, cannot be of too coarse a quality ; the 

 sliin or the cheek of the ox being preferable to the ribs or but- 

 tocks ; it should be lean. Paunch is excellent meat for dogs, and 

 to aristocratic bow-wows it may be given in the form of tripe. 

 Never allow your dog to eat what is commonly known as " cat's- 

 meat." I am loth to say a word that may work iU towards any 

 branch of industry, but there is little doubt that the aboUtion 

 of the " cat's-meat " business would be an immense benefit to 

 the canine and feline races. Consider the long odds that exist 

 against the chance of the horsefiesh being nutritious P First, 

 it may be safely reckoned that at least a fourth of the number 

 of horses killed are diseased. Secondly, it is generally pitched 

 into the cauldron almost before it is cold ; and as it does not in 

 the least, concern either the wholesale or the retail dealer, 

 whether the meat be lean or tough, very little attention is paid 

 to the boiling. Thirdly, the retail dealer — ^the peripatetic cat's- 

 meat man — as a rtde, brings the meat hot from the copper, and 

 though, perhaps, equally as a ru.le, yet by no means as an 



