Roaches and Water Bugs: Powdered borax mixed with sugar kills them. Set it about in saucers, sprinkle under pipes and on sills, also on the bottom of closets and drawers. Lay clean paper over it. Once a month remove paper, wipe wood, sprinkle again after drying, and put on fresh paper. Burn every dead insect. In cellars or greenhouses mix a little Paris green with the powder, dip into it cut potatoes, and lay them cut side down, in the way of roaches. Gather up each morning, drop in water as gathered, and replace at evening with freshly loaded potatoes. Pour turpentine around water pipes and those for steam heat. Paint the pipes with turpentine, doing it when they are cool. Paint kitchen floors and baseboards after scouring with bichloride of mercury; beware, though, using it higher. Keep borax and sugar on pantry shelves under paper. Paint with turpentine at housecleaning. Fill cracks, crevices, and knotholes with putty. Do the same with tops and rims of set tubs, renewing it as it breaks.
Ants: Ants, black or red, hate the smell of camphor. Make rings of it around dishes of food and pour it into crevices suspected as ant roads. If they climb by a post or pillar put a tarred bandage around it. Find the nest if possible and destroy it with boiling water or gasolene or kerosene with a little camphor added. Beware of gasolene if the nest is close to any building. Boiling soda water is safe anywhere except about plants. There use strong carbolic soapsuds, blood-warm, with an after-sprinkle of camphor. Gum camphor tied in net and hung in closets or pantries helps to drive ants away.
XI
CARE OF PETS
Dogs: Choose your dog, unless he chooses himself by adopting you, with regard for environment. Big dogs require space—big rooms and grounds outside. Small ones are “in drawing” with apartments or modest houses. Breed is a matter of chance or choice. Toy terriers, toy Pomeranians, spaniels, and pugs fit into restricted menages. St. Bernards, collies, greyhounds, wolf hounds, and hunting-dogs in general are miserable in confinement, also miserably out of place.
Teach him obedience first of all, keep him clean and comfortable, never forget him, feed regularly, give constant access to clean water, and always sufficient exercise. Otherwise don’t keep him; neglect is a refinement of cruelty.
Vary the feeding. Dog biscuit day in and out destroys appetite and thrift. Shift every other day to table scraps, oatmeal porridge, cornmeal mush cooked with broth, or raw meat and bones. Give milk almost every day—not too much. Be sparing of the raw meat; a zest suffices. Tiny house dogs ought to have light breakfasts, with a hearty dinner around two o’clock, and nothing more. Dogs running out need much more food, otherwise they get into mischief. A hearty breakfast and dinner with milk and mush at sundown is not too much. Feed all that will be eaten clean; if food is left, diminish the quantity. Leave nothing but bones where a dog may come back to it. Gnawing solid bones helps strength and spirit. Small bones of game or fowl must be given with discretion; they are crunched and swallowed so greedily the sharp ends may do harm if the stomach is too full of them.
A flea-bearing dog is intolerable. Wash in larkspur water (see section Insecticides) or carbolic soapsuds, and comb while in the bath with a fine-tooth comb. Drain off water and fleas, rinse tub, rinse dog well, dry with coarse soft towels, keep muzzled until fully dry, and away from draughts. When fully dry, part hair and blow in behind the ears and along the spine flowers of sulphur mixed with larkspur powder or pyrethrum powder.
For skin troubles, mange especially, bathe well in hot sulphur soapsuds, rinse dry, and rub well into the affected spots unsalted butter washed clean of milk and made yellow with flowers of sulphur. If the trouble persists and the dog is valuable, consult a vet; the dog, perhaps, needs constitutional treatment.
Kennels and doghouses must be clean and dry, baskets and bedding kept clean and free of vermin. Whitewash kennels and doghouses often, putting larkspur infusion or carbolic acid in the whitewash, else mixing in flowers of sulphur. Scald baskets, dry, and paint with turpentine and sweet oil. Lay bedding outside and drench with gasolene. Burn it if mange appears, else it will reinfect the animal. Do not let dogs sleep haphazard anywhere they can. Give them comfortable beds, indoors or out.