Kennel Lameness.
We now proceed to a most important and ill-understood subject — the nature and treatment of
kennel lameness
. It is a subject that nearly concerns the sportsman, and on which there are several and the most contrary opinions.
This is a kind of lameness connected with, or attributable to, the kennel. According to the early opinion of Mr. Asheton Smith, who is a good authority, it was referable to some peculiarity in the breed or management of the hounds; but, agreeably to a later opinion, it is dependent on situation and subsoil, and may be aggravated or increased by circumstances over which we have no control. Some kennels are in low and damp situations, yet the hounds are free from all complaint: and others, with the stanchest dogs and under the best management, are continually sinking under kennel lameness.
Mr. R. T.
was one of the first who scientifically treated on this point, and taught us that
clay is not by any means an objectionable soil to build a kennel upon
, although so many pseudo-sportsmen are frightened by the very name of it.
He enters at once into his subject.
"I am thoroughly convinced," says he, "from my own experience, and, I may add, my own suffering, that the disease of kennel lameness arises only from one cause, and that is an injudicious and unfortunate selection of the spot for building. The kennel is generally built on a sand-bed, or on a sandstone rock, while the healthiest grounds in England are on a stiff clay, and they are the healthiest because they are the least porous. Although this may be contrary to the opinion and prejudice of the majority of sportsmen, it is a fact that cannot be contradicted.
Through a light and friable soil, such as sand and sandstone, a vapour, more or less dense, is continually exhaling and causing a perpetual damp, which produces that fearful rheumatism which goes by the name of kennel lameness, while the kennels that are built on a clay soil, a soil of an impervious nature, are invariably healthy.
I could," he adds, "enumerate twenty kennels to prove the effect — the invariable effect — of the existence of the disease on the one part, and of the healthiness of the situation on the other. I turn particularly to her Majesty's kennel at Ascot, the arches of which were laid under the very foundation strain, and yet little at no amendment has ever taken place in the healthiness and comfort of the dogs. It is necessary to select a sound and healthy situation when about to erect a kennel, and that sound and healthy situation can be met with alone on a strong impervious clay soil. We must have no fluid oozing through the walls or the floor of the kennel, and producing damp and unhealthy vapours, such as we find in the sandbed."
With regard to this there can be no error.
, in his excellent treatise on
Kennel Lameness
, asks, whether it does not appear that this disease is on the increase. He asks,
How is it that neither Beckford nor Somerville says one word that clearly applies to the disease; and no one, however learned he might be in canine pathology, has been able clearly to define the disease, much less to discover a remedy for it?"
that Mr. Blaine says on the matter amounts only to this:
"The healthiness of the situation on which any kennel is to be built, is an important consideration. It is essential that it should be both dry and airy, and it should also be warm. A damp kennel produces rheumatism in dogs, which shows itself sometimes by weakness in the loins, but more frequently by lameness in the shoulders, known under the name of kennel lameness."
. Blaine illustrates this by reference to his own experience.
"There is no disease, with the exception of distemper and mange, to which dogs are so liable as to a rheumatic affection of some part of the body. It presents almost as many varieties in the dog as it does in man; and it has some peculiarities observable in the dog only. Rheumatism never exists in a dog without affecting the bowels. There will be inflammation or painful torpor through the whole of the intestinal canal. It is only in some peculiar districts that this occurs; it pervades certain kennels only; and but until lately there has been little or almost no explanation of the cause of the evil."[20]
Nimrod took a most important view of the matter, and to him the sporting world is much indebted.
"How is it," he asks, "that, in our younger days, we never heard of kennel lameness, or, indeed, of hounds being lame at all, unless from accident, or becoming shaken and infirm from not having been composed of that iron-bound material which the labours of a greyhound or a hound require? How is it, that, in our younger days, masters of hounds began the season with 50 or 60 couples, and, bating the casualties, left off at the end of it equally strong in their kennels, and able, perhaps, to make a valuable draft; whereas we now hear of one-half of the dogs in certain localities being disabled by disease, and some masters of hounds compelled to be stopped in their work until their kennels are replenished."
hounds when they come home after work must be injurious to them, although it has almost become the fashion of modern times. If they are not washed at all, and we believe it to be unnecessary, yet the kennels in which lameness has appeared should be strictly avoided. It should be on the day following and not in the evening of a hunting-day that washing should take place.
Mr. Hodgson told Nimrod, that the Quorn Pack never had a case of kennel lameness until his late huntsman took to washing his hounds after hunting, and then he often had four or five couples ill from this cause. He deprecated even their access to water in the evening after hunting, and we believe that he was quite right in so doing.
tongue of the dog, with the aid of clean straw, is his best and safest instrument in cleansing his person; and, if he can be brought to his kennel with tolerably clean feet, as Mr. Foljambe enables him to be brought, he will never be long before he is comfortable in his bed, after his belly is filled.
There is another mode, as a preventive of kennel lameness, which we have the best authority for saying deserves particular attention, and that is, the frequently turning hounds off their benches during the day, even if it were to the extent of every two hours throughout the entire day. We do not mean to deny the existence of a disease, which, being produced in the kennel, is properly termed kennel lameness. Some kennels are, no doubt, more unhealthy and prone to engender rheumatic affections than others; but, by proper management, and avoiding as much as possible all exciting causes, their effects may, at least, be very much lessened, if not entirely obviated.
[Contents]/[Detailed Contents, p. 2]/[Index]