506 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
of his kennel, scraps of mutton, beef, or goat meat, 
stewed with cabbage, onions, beets, turnips, and other 
vegetables—observing that all are strictly: sound and 
good—make an excellent food during the idle months. 
When a dog is used for field work the food should 
be almost wholly meat. Sheep’s heads and tripe make 
an excellent food, preferably in a stew. The former 
should be skinned, and boiled till the bones can be 
readily removed from the flesh. Corn meal, though 
quite commonly used, is one of the poorest of dog 
foods, much of it being undigested, as can readily be 
known by an examination of the dog’s droppings. 
For working dogs, one feed after the day’s work 
is ended is quite sufficient. They then should have all 
that they will eat. If fed in the morning, digestion 
is suspended while the dog is ranging about, and he 
is carrying with him the equivalent of so much dead 
weight, with no nutritive qualities for the time being. 
If fed on a meat diet when working, the dog is al- 
most exempt from bowel troubles, while if fed much 
corn meal such troubles are frequent. For the latter 
there is no better or prompter remedy than lean beef, 
cut into small pieces, and heated through in a hot oven, 
thus being only blood rare. 
If a dog’s stomach is loaded when he is at work his 
powers of scent are seriously impaired. It matters not 
whether he is fed on meat or vegetables. Nature has 
wisely provided that while digestion is in progress the 
dog’s sense of smell is dulled. Even man, whose sense 
of smell is incomparably inferior to that of the dog, 
