DOG DOCTORING BY DOG-FANCIERS. 
77 
n 
B 
o’clock on Christmas morning, and by Wednesday night had had 
no pups ; when a dog-fancier proposed with the right finger, the 
middle finger (and such a size it was), to deliver her of the pups, 
whether dead or alive, by introducing it into her. Failing in doing 
this, he used a steel instrument, having more the appearance of a 
pick-lock. The following is a sketch of it : — 
B represents a sharp-pointed crook, which he thought 
to hook into the head of the nearest pup ; A is a ring 
which he held to pull the pup out with; the crook he put 
on the top of his finger to introduce it into the womb of 
the dog. He brought away in this manner half of the head, 
and afterwards a gut-like piece of flesh, having the ap- 
pearance of some part of her inside. I think it was this 
that killed her. Her cries were pitiful to the extreme, 
yet she never attempted to snap : she was good natured with 
all. She died the same evening, was opened, and the pups were 
found lying across each other. They were only two in number ; 
and I account for their being so placed from the circumstance of 
his using so much force with his left hand on her ribs to push the 
pups more forward. He never practises this plan with his own 
bitches ! I have since ascertained this fact. 
I remain, 
Your obedient servant, 
J. B. H. 
Queries. 
1. Was it wrong to let her have pups at four years-and-a-half old, 
never having had them before ; and would it not have been 
better to let Nature take its own course ? 
2. Supposing she had had no pups a week after bursting her 
water, and that the pups were dead in her at that time, and we 
will say they were both putrid by that time — could she have 
brought them forward, and have lived afterwards herself? 
3. Are the means usually resorted to in difficult parturition, of 
opening the bitch, to save her or her pups , and is the operation 
usually attended with success in the case of the former ? 
Would you be kind enough to tell me in what veterinary work 
I shall find a similar case reported ? 
Treatment — On the evening of the first day she had ergot of 
rye pills with ginger — two grains each — every hour, a dose of 
castor oil having preceded the first dose. 
A warm bath on the second day ; refused all food, but great 
thirst. Nothing remained on her stomach, or passed through her. 
VOL. XXIII. M 
