KENNEL MANAGEMENT OF DOGS. 237 
pine-shavings. All other beds, straw especially, promote 
vermin ; this seems to prevent them. 
The best food for dogs is old Indian meal stirred, with 
a handful of salt, into water while it is boiling, till it is 
quite thick, and allowed to become cold; when it should be 
served with broth, buttermilk, or milk, where it can be 
obtained. Occasionally, if the dogs are low in condition, 
a complete blow-out of flesh may be given to them ; it acts 
as a purgative, and they are the better after it. It should 
not, however, be given above once or twice a year, a few 
weeks before the opening and close of the shooting season. 
While at work, dogs should never have flesh, except 
cooked ; and of that the less the better. Broth is all that 
is requisite, and where milk can be obtained it is prefer- 
able to broth. Four sheep’s heads a week, will be amply 
sufficient to make broth for a kennel of three dogs. The 
bones should never be given. They are constant causes 
of contention, where there are two or more dogs together ; 
they engender filth and disease, and they are seriously 
injurious to the teeth. 
Dogs much accustomed to flesh are attacked far more 
severely than others by the special catarrh—the disease 
known as distemper—suffer from it far more acutely, and 
are more difficult of cure, since exceedingly low diet is, 
perhaps, the most efficacious mode of treatment; and when 
dogs are entirely or principally kept on animal food, it is 
with great difficulty that they can be induced to take any 
other. 
The water supplied to kennels or single dogs cannot be 
too fresh, too pure, or too frequently changed. Naturally, 
