Treat your dog at all ages with kindly consideration. Be patiently and considerately firm, remembering that you must rule through affection and respect. Don’t hector or worry all the time. Be your dog’s playfellow as well as master, and he will soon become an intelligent and faithful protector.
Cats can be kept in a city home with less trouble than dogs, because they haven’t got to be taken out to exercise, a duty which can’t be shirked with Mr. Dog. Cats are needed in suburban or country houses at least as much as dogs. The master of the house can usually guard against the rarely met burglar, but no human vigilance is adroit enough to fight four-legged pantry thieves, and a farm must have a good-sized tribe of felines to prevent loss in the barn, poultry house and corn-crib.
Well-bred cats are just as good hunters as common ones, so it is wise for the self-supporting home to keep aristocratic cats for the house, as there is no occasion to do violence to your feelings when kittens arrive, because they can always be sold at fairly good prices.
In the outbuilding we keep Maltese and very large blacks. We have so many requests for the Maltese and blacks that even the plebeian mothers are allowed to keep one or two kits of every litter, for having children to provide for is a great spur to Mrs. Cat’s hunting proclivities.
Considering the service cats perform for humanity by keeping in check the numerous varieties of rodents which abound in cities no less than in country places, they should be the most highly prized and cared-for small animals we have instead of the most abused.
There seems to be a prevailing but erroneous idea that cats are neither affectionate nor companionable. Treat a cat as you would an intelligent dog and she will compare so favorably that Mr. Dog will have to be extremely gifted to retain his superiority.
The outside cats should have plenty of fresh milk night and morning when the cows are milked, not only as food, but to counteract the injurious effect of the number of mice they eat. New milk is rich in cream fats, and acts as an antidote to the poison contained in the gall of the mice. Twice a week we give them a feed of raw meat, on the bone if we can get enough bones, for even the rat-catchers must be well fed, or they lack the vitality to hunt.
Having plenty of exercise, and being able to find grass and herbs for themselves, barn-cats are usually normal, healthy creatures, and need little dieting or doctoring from their owners, but they should always have a good, warm place to sleep in.
The city house-cat leads such a semi-artificial life that she needs more care. Milk which has stood several hours and been skimmed is not an especially good food. It should be scalded and allowed to cool before it is given to kittens.
People rarely think to provide water for cats, yet they really prefer it to milk, and drink a surprising quantity when a dish of it is kept in one regular place. Potatoes should be as rigidly tabooed in the kittens’ diet as in the puppies’. Accustom a cat to eat cereal or bread and milk in the morning.