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; extract of 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 thé 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 
