
THE HUNTING DOG 
Many people would look upon all these 
directions as superfluous. ‘‘Any old place is 
good enough for a dog.” Let me retort by say- 
ing that any old dog is good enough forthem. If 
aman has a fine one, it will pay him to take care 
of it, and if it is a well-broken pointer or setter, 
he may be very sure that proper kennel man- 
agement will make his dog much more useful 
in the field. The shooting season is so short in 
most States, and the closed season is so long, 
that a dog is very likely to get entirely out of 
condition if you keep him in too small a kennel. 
On the other hand, if you give him the run of 
the house and let the women pamper him and 
ie ; 
omme 
“By J.J. Gr 
281 
may allow him a fair amount of meat without 
hurt. This is, possibly, the chief reason why 
dogs improve so much when they are taken 
from a sedentary life and put into an active one. 
Again, never give a dog meat because it is 
putrid and cannot be cooked for your own 
table. Almost any flesh is good, provided it be 
fresh. When you do feed oatmeal, make it 
stiff and thick, and do not burn it. Stale bread 
mixed in with meat is good food occasionally, 
and large bones that the dog cannot swallow 
are always useful. Better to give them raw 
than cooked, as after boiling nothing but the 
lime is left, and the dog can crunch and swallow 

IRISH SETTER PUPPIES AT WORK ON MINNESOTA CHICKENS 
the children play with him, his usefulness in 
the field will diminish somewhat rapidly. 
Tn large kennels there is usually some room 
to be set aside for the use of the kennelman, and 
near at hand he has cupboards where he can 
keep a few simple medicines—though the 
dosing of dogs should never be encouraged— 
together with an assortment of combs, brushes 
and disinfectants. 
Owing to the practice of keeping packs of 
foxhounds on oatmeal, there is a tendency 
among dog owners to feed too much farina- 
ceous food; there can be no reasonable doubt 
that the natural food of the dog, who was 
probably originally a wolf, is meat, and it 
would appear to be a grave mistake to feed him 
on mushy foods too persistently. Of course, 
the dog in his natural state was obliged to take 
an immense amount of exercise, while the 
civilized dog is too often debarred from taking 
any, yet it may be reasonably doubted if his 
internal economy is adapted to a starchy diet. 
Give your dog plenty of exercise, and then you 
them, when they are pretty sure to produce 
indigestion and other evils. 
The old worthies used to recommend a 
liberal diet of vegetables in summer, but our 
own impression is that vegetables are not very 
necessary to a dog, notwithstanding that he will 
eat quantities of grass if his stomach is out of 
order with improper feeding. Dogs that are 
living almost in a state of nature do not eat 
grass; at least, we have never seen them do so. 
The great curse of a large kennel is often 
eczema, or some other kind of so-called 
“‘mange,” but if you examine every dog 
thoroughly before you admit him to your ken- 
nel and keep him in solitary confinement for a 
sufficiently long time to be sure he is in good 
health and free from vermin, you need not have 
much trouble on this score. Of course, if you 
send your dogs around to the shows they are 
likely to catch anything that is going, and dogs 
that have been on the circuit should certainly 
be kept apart from the others for a week or ten 
days after their return home. 
