Finn the wolfhound

by A. J. Dawson

"Come along, little shepherd. That's good-bye."

And that was the last Finn saw of any foster-mother. That was the end of babyhood, and the beginning of childhood for Finn. He slept alone that night, and found it rather awesome during the few minutes in which his eyes were open, between the last lapped meal at ten o'clock and the first of the next day, when the Master came to him at five-thirty. The Master held that if you would breed a really exceptional hound, you must be prepared to take really exceptional trouble over the task, since a chance lost in the first half year of your hound's life, is lost for good and all.

[CHAPTER V]

YOUTH BESIDE THE DOWNS

Finn did not have more than one solitary night for the present. His great bed in the coach-house, which was twelve feet long by six feet broad, was shared the next night by the other three puppies, who had seen the last of their foster-mother that morning. They whimpered a little after the last night meal, when they found themselves bereft of maternal attention, and this gave Finn an opportunity for indulging in a certain amount of swagger on the strength of his previous night's experience. He had already adopted the air of a dog accustomed to go his own way and to sleep alone. Also, he regarded the coach-house bed as his own, and the other puppies as youngsters only admitted to that place by his courtesy. Thus from the very outset, here as elsewhere, he gave his comrades to understand that he was master, and that no one must presume to trespass upon any quarter which he took up as his own. All day long the four puppies had the run of the shed in the orchard, which was kept wide open. If a shower of rain came, they were bustled into this place by the Mistress of the Kennels, and there the most of their nine daily meals were served to them.

Nine meals in a day seems a very large number, but this was part of the Master's theory in the rearing of Irish Wolfhounds, or any other dog in whom great size is aimed at. In the week after weaning the meals began at half-past five in the morning and finished at ten o'clock at night. In the next week they were cut down to eight meals; the next week seven, the next week six; the next fortnight five; and then, for a long time, the number of meals served to these young princes of their breed each day was four. The object in all this was threefold. First, the Master held it necessary that these pups should have as much nourishment as they were capable of assimilating with advantage; secondly, he was anxious never to spoil their appetites by permitting them at any time to experience surfeit; and, in the third place, he believed strongly in light meals for young hounds, as distinguished from the sort of meal often given, which leaves the puppy fit for nothing but the heavy sleep of the overeaten. Tara's pups romped after their meals, and slept before them. Their digestions were never overtaxed, and their soft, unset legs were never overstrained by the extremely bulging stomach which many breeders associate as a matter of course with puppyhood. This the Master held to be a point of great importance with hounds of this kind, whose limbs take just as long to harden and set as those of any other breed, while their increase in weight to be carried on those limbs is enormously rapid, at all events in the case of such whelps as those of Tara's.

For instance, at the age of five weeks Finn weighed just over fourteen pounds. Sixteen days later he weighed 22 lbs. 2 ozs., while the other three pups weighed respectively on the same day 20 lbs., 19 1/2 lbs., and 18 3/4 lbs. Growth at the rate of just half a pound weight per day is growth which requires a good deal of wise feeding and care. At the age of twenty weeks Finn weighed 91 [sic] 1/4 lbs. Puppies' legs are easily bowed and rarely straightened. Finn and his brother and sisters were never allowed on damp ground at this period. It was rarely that they were out of the sight of either the Master or the Mistress of the Kennels for more than half an hour at a time. As the Master said, breeding champion Irish Wolfhounds is no light undertaking. The Mistress of the Kennels was the more inclined to agree with him for the reason that it was her province to see to it, even when the pups were having their nine meals a day, that the same kind of meal was never served twice consecutively. The dietary included four or five staple articles, with as many as seven or eight different accessories. The bills of fare at different successive periods were as studiously and exactly drawn up by the Master as ever a human patient's diet is arranged by doctors in a hospital.

But of all these things, which kept several people pretty busy--five or six feeding dishes were scalded and washed nine times a day; there was a puppy's kitchen and a puppy's larder--Finn and his companions knew nothing. To them life was the most delightfully haphazard affair, made up exclusively of playing, sleeping, and eating, with a little occasional fighting and mock-fighting (over the huge bones which were placed at their disposal to serve the purpose of tooth-brushes and tooth-sharpeners) by way of diversion and excitement. Their play was not at all unlike that of human children. They loved to dig holes in the ground; to hide behind tree-trunks and spring out upon one another with terrifying cries and pretended fierceness; all kinds of make-believe appealed to them greatly, and to none of them more keenly than to Finn, who liked to come galloping down from the other end of the orchard to the old oak tree, flying exaggerated danger signals, and making believe that he was pursued by a savage and remorseless enemy.