54 The Dog Book 



dawdling about all day in a kennel-yard in the belief that the latter is muscle- 

 building exercise. This applies also to the prolonged road-walking on the 

 lead. There is a good deal of the artificial in all this, but it is no more 

 artificial than any other preparation for a competition, and it is the neglect 

 of this preparation which has caused many an avoidable defeat. 



It sometimes occurs that a dog declines to eat as much as is necessary, 

 and hence will not put on flesh. Tape-worm should then be tried for, and if 

 a good vermifuge properly administered to the dog after a preparatory fast 

 is not productive of satisfactory results, it is likely that the dog is one of the 

 kind known as a "bad doer." These dogs are very difficult to get right, for 

 while they will eat one day very well, they are off their feed for a day or two 

 afterward. Some proceed to dose such a dog with arsenic and strychnine, 

 but these conditioners are bad things to resort to as a starter, and it is much 

 better to get some tonic pills. There are none better than the following: 

 Quinine, 12 grains; sulphate of iron, 18 grains; extractof gentian, 24 grains; 

 powdered ginger, 18 grains. This is sufficient for twelve pills. As two may 

 be administered daily, a sufficient quantity may as well be ordered at one 

 time. To aid digestion give a pinch of pepsin or a little nux vomica in the 

 drinking water with the food. When the dog will not of his own volition eat 

 the desired quantity of food, it becomes necessary to improve the quality, 

 and raw scraped beef, beaten eggs, and anything else he will eat must be 

 provided. 



That is the customary way to treat a "bad doer," but never when pos- 

 sible to avoid it do I administer medicines in my own kennel, and I have 

 always adhered to the method of the late Sidney Smith, famed in connection 

 with St. Bernards. I called once at his house in Leeds, England, and seeing 

 a dog under the table in the parlor, asked what he was doing there. "Oh, 

 we are cake-feeding him." That expression being a new one, I asked 

 what it meant. Then Mr. Smith told me that when they had a dog that 

 was hard to condition and would not eat enough, he was brought into the 

 house and a supply of cakes was kept on the table from which he was fed 

 all day long. A dog, even when not hungry, will feed from the hand, almost 

 to oblige his owner; and when he has had all he will take of cake, will eat 

 something else. Taking it in small quantities in this manner, the appetite 

 does not get cloyed, as is the case with a hearty meal. This is a method 

 I have tried successfully on dogs that were hard to condition. ■ 



In order to know what your dogs are doing at the trencher, it is well 



