With regard to feeding, this requires to be studied in relation to the particular breed. One good meal a day, served by preference in the evening, is sufficient for the adult if a dry dog-cake or a handful of rodnim be given for breakfast, and perhaps a large bone to gnaw at. Clean cold water must always be at hand in all weathers, and a drink of milk coloured with tea is nourishing. Goat's milk is particularly suitable for the dog: many owners keep goats on their premises to give a constant supply. It is a mistake to suppose, as many persons do, that meat diet provokes eczema and other skin troubles; the contrary is the case. The dog is by nature a carnivorous animal, and wholesome flesh, either cooked or raw, should be his staple food. Horseflesh, which is frequently used in large establishments, is not so fully to be relied upon as ordinary butcher meat. There is no serious objection to bullocks' heads, sheeps' heads, bullocks' tripes and paunches and a little liver given occasionally is an aperient food which most dogs enjoy. But when it can be afforded, wholesome butcher's meat is without question the proper food. Oatmeal porridge, rice, barley, linseed meal, and bone meal ought only to be regarded as occasional additions to the usual meat diet, and are not necessary when dog cakes are regularly supplied. Well-boiled green vegetables, such as cabbage, turnip-tops, and nettle-tops, are good mixed with the meat; potatoes are questionable. Of the various advertised dog foods, many of which are excellent, the choice may be left to those who are fond of experiment, or who seek for convenient substitutes for the old-fashioned and wholesome diet of the household. Sickly dogs require invalid's treatment; but the best course is usually the simplest, and, given a sound constitution to begin with, any dog ought to thrive if he is only properly housed, carefully fed, and gets abundant exercise.
CHAPTER L
BREEDING AND WHELPING
The modern practice of dog-breeding in Great Britain has reached a condition which may be esteemed as an art. At no other time, and in no other country, have the various canine types been kept more rigidly distinct or brought to a higher level of perfection. Formerly dog-owners—apart from the keepers of packs of hounds—paid scant attention to the differentiation of breeds and the conservation of type, and they considered it no serious breach of duty to ignore the principles of scientific selection, and thus contribute to the multiplication of mongrels. Discriminate breeding was rare, and if a Bulldog should mate himself with a Greyhound, or a Spaniel with a Terrier, the alliance was regarded merely as an inconvenience. So careless were owners in preventing the promiscuous mingling of alien breeds that it is little short of surprising so many of our canine types have been preserved in their integrity.
The elimination of the nondescript cur is no doubt largely due to the work of the homes for lost dogs that are instituted in most of our great towns. Every year some 26,000 homeless and ownerless canines are picked up by the police in the streets of London, and during the forty-seven years which have elapsed since the Dogs' Home at Battersea was established, upwards of 800,000 dogs have passed through the books, a few to be reclaimed or bought, the great majority to be put to death. A very large proportion of these have been veritable mongrels, not worth the value of their licences—diseased and maimed curs, or bitches in whelp, turned ruthlessly adrift to be consigned to the oblivion of the lethal chamber, where the thoroughbred seldom finds its way. And if as many as 500 undesirables are destroyed every week at one such institution, 'tis clear that the ill-bred mongrel must soon altogether disappear. But the chief factor in the general improvement of our canine population is due to the steadily growing care and pride which are bestowed upon the dog, and to the scientific skill with which he is being bred.
Admitting that the dogs seen at our best contemporary shows are superlative examples of scientific selection, one has yet to acknowledge that the process of breeding for show points has its disadvantages, and that, in the sporting and pastoral varieties more especially, utility is apt to be sacrificed to ornament and type, and stamina to fancy qualities not always relative to the animal's capacities as a worker. The standards of perfection and scales of points laid down by the specialist clubs are usually admirable guides to the uninitiated, but they are often unreasonably arbitrary in their insistence upon certain details of form—generally in the neighbourhood of the head—while they leave the qualities of type and character to look after themselves or to be totally ignored.
It is necessary to assure the beginner in breeding that points are essentially of far less moment than type and a good constitution. The one thing necessary in the cultivation of the dog is to bear in mind the purpose for which he is supposed to be employed, and to aim at adapting or conserving his physique to the best fulfilment of that purpose, remembering that the Greyhound has tucked-up loins to give elasticity and bend to the body in running, that a Terrier is kept small to enable him the better to enter an earth, that a Bulldog is massive and undershot for encounters in the bullring, that the Collie's ears are erected to assist him in hearing sounds from afar, as those of the Bloodhound are pendant, the more readily to detect sounds coming to him along the ground while his head is bent to the trail. Nature has been discriminate in her adaptations of animal forms; and the most perfect dog yet bred is the one which approaches nearest to Nature's wise intention.
The foregoing chapters have given abundant examples of how the various breeds of the dog have been acquired, manufactured, improved, resuscitated, and retained. Broadly speaking, two methods have been adopted: The method of introducing an outcross to impart new blood, new strength, new character; and the method of inbreeding to retain an approved type. An outcross is introduced when the breed operated upon is declining in stamina or is in danger of extinction, or when some new physical or mental quality is desired. New types and eccentricities are hardly wanted, however, and the extreme requirements of an outcross may nowadays be achieved by the simple process of selecting individuals from differing strains of the same breed, mating a bitch which lacks the required points with a dog in whose family they are prominently and consistently present.
Inbreeding is the reverse of outcrossing. It is the practice of mating animals closely related to each other, and it is, within limits, an entirely justifiable means of preserving and intensifying family characteristics. It is a law in zoology that an animal cannot transmit a quality which it does not itself innately possess, or which none of its progenitors has ever possessed. By mating a dog and a bitch of the same family, therefore, you concentrate and enhance the uniform inheritable qualities into one line instead of two, and you reduce the number of possibly heterogeneous ancestors by exactly a half right back to the very beginning. There is no surer way of maintaining uniformity of type, and an examination of the extended pedigree of almost any famous dog will show how commonly inbreeding is practised. Inbreeding is certainly advantageous when managed with judgment and discreet selection, but it has its disadvantages also, for it is to be remembered that faults and blemishes are inherited as well as merits, and that the faults have a way of asserting themselves with annoying persistency. Furthermore, breeding between animals closely allied in parentage is prone to lead to degeneracy, physical weakness, and mental stupidity, while impotence and sterility are frequent concomitants, and none but experienced breeders should attempt so hazardous an experiment. Observation has proved that the union of father with daughter and mother with son is preferable to an alliance between brother and sister. Perhaps the best union is that between cousins. For the preservation of general type, however, it ought to be sufficient to keep to one strain and to select from that strain members who, while exhibiting similar characteristics, are not actually too closely allied in consanguinity. To move perpetually from one strain to another is only to court an undesirable confusion of type.
In founding a kennel it is advisable to begin with the possession of a bitch. As a companion the female is to be preferred to the male; she is not less affectionate and faithful, and she is usually much cleaner in her habits in the house. If it is intended to breed by her, she should be very carefully chosen and proved to be free from any serious fault or predisposition to disease. Not only should her written pedigree be scrupulously scrutinised, but her own constitution and that of her parents on both sides should be minutely inquired into.