CAEE AND MANAGEMENT OF ANIMALS 871 



middle hours of the day. Others, for their own convenience, 

 and to prevent hungry dogs from howling at night, feed 

 them in the evening. A dog will eat enough at one meal 

 to keep him in health, but he will enjoy a higher level of 

 comfort if fed twice a day. If it is desired to put flesh on 

 a wasted dog, it is doubtful if more than two meals in the 

 course of one day can be given with advantage, but most 

 dogs will gain weight very rapidly if fed at nine or ten a.m. 

 and at five or six p.m. For this purpose a mixed diet will 

 produce the best results, and the meat portion should be 

 cut up into very small pieces, and so mixed with porridge 

 or other food that it cannot well be separated by the animal, 

 who will soon acquire a preference for flesh food, and finally 

 eat nothing else if he can obtain as much as he wishes. 



House dogs too generally receive an excess of bones ; 

 they are particularly fond of them, and there is no 

 other use for them in the domestic economy. They are 

 crushed and swallowed unless very large. The gelatinous 

 portion is digested, and the insoluble mineral matter 

 accumulates in the terminal portion of the intestinal canal. 

 The white hardened fseces, which crumble when trodden 

 upon, are almost exclusively composed of this material. 

 Apart from the risk of splinters of bone becoming lodged 

 in the oesophagus, or some other portion of the tube, and 

 of constipation when an insufiicient proportion of laxative 

 food is allowed, there is no great objection to bones, having 

 regard to the peculiarities of the species in the matter of 

 deffecation. Unless the excrement is hard, the anal glands 

 are not called into play ; they suffer congestion for want of 

 the pressure exerted in the passing of hardened fteces, and 

 little abscesses follow on the habit of drawing the anus 

 along the ground to relieve the itching — caused by the 

 congestion. 



The faeces of a healthy dog should be hard, and there 

 should be some posturing and effort to expel the first 

 portion, the remainder coming away quite easily when the 

 unctuous secretion from the glands has lubricated the faecal 

 substance. 



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