He states that the kennel should be built on a dry and warm situation. Of this there can be no doubt: the comfort and almost the existence of the dog depend upon it. To this he adds that it must not be placed on a gravelly or porous soil, over which vapours more or less dense are frequently or continually travelling, and thus causing a destructive exhalation over the whole of the building. There must be no fluid oozing through the walls or the floor of the kennel, and producing damp and unhealthy vapours. When we have not a deep supersoil of clay, one or two layers of bricks or of stone may line the floor, and then, not even the most subtile vapour can penetrate through the floor. A clean bed of straw should be allowed every second day, or oftener when the weather is wet. The lodging-houses should be ceiled, and there should be shutters to the windows. A thatched roof is preferable to tiles, being warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
Stoves in the kennels are not necessary: probably they are best avoided; for, if dogs are accustomed to any considerable degree of artificial heat, they are more easily chilled by a long exposure to cold. Their teeth and the setting-up of their backs will confirm this.
Hounds, when they feel cold, naturally seek each other for warmth, and they may be seen lying upon the straw and licking each other; and that is by far the most wholesome way of procuring comfort and warmth.
returning from hunting, their feet should be washed with some warm fluid, and especially the eyes should be examined, and their food got ready for them as soon as possible. The feeding in the morning should be an hour, or an hour and a half, before they start for the field.
It is truly observed by the noble writer to whom we have referred, that there is no part of an establishment of this kind that merits more attention than the boiling and feeding house. The hounds cannot perform their work well unless judiciously fed. Each hound requires particular and constitutional care. No more than five of them should be let in to feed together, and often not more than one or two. The feeder should have each hound under his immediate observation, or they may get too much or too little of the food.
Some hounds cannot run if they carry much flesh; others are all the better for having plenty about them. The boilers should be of iron, two in number, — one for meal and the smaller one for flesh. The large boiler should render it necessary to be used not more than once in four days or a week. The food should be stirred for two hours, then transferred to flat coolers, until sufficiently gelatinous to be cut with a kind of spade. By the admixture of some portion of soups it may be brought to any thickness requisite. The flesh to be mixed with it should be cut very small, that the greedy hounds may not be able to obtain more than their share. Four bushels and a half of genuine old oatmeal should be boiled with a hundred gallons of water. The flesh should he boiled every second or third day. Too great a proportion of soup would render the mixture of a heating nature.
Mr. Delmé Radcliffe very truly observes that the feeding of hounds, as regards their condition, is one of the most essential proofs of a huntsman's skill in the management of the kennel. To preserve that even state of condition throughout the pack which is so desirable, he must be well acquainted with the appetite of every hound; for some will feed with a voracity scarcely credible, and others will require every kind of enticement to induce them to feed.
Mr. Meynell found that the use of dry unboiled oatmeal succeeded better than any other thing he had tried with delicate hounds. When once induced to take it, they would eat it greedily, and it seemed to be far more heartening than most kinds of aliment. Other hounds of delicate constitution might be tempted with a little additional flesh, and with the thickest and best of the trough, but they required to be watched, and often to be coaxed to eat.
The dog possesses the power of struggling against want of food for an almost incredible period. One of these animals, six years old, was missing three-and-twenty days; at length some children wandering in a distant wood thought that they frequently heard the baying of a dog. The master was told of it, and at the bottom of an old quarry, sixty feet deep, and the mouth of which he had almost closed by his vain attempts to escape, the voice of the poor fellow was recognised. With much difficulty he was extricated, and found in a state of emaciation; his body cold as ice and his thirst inextinguishable, and he scarcely able to move. They gave him at intervals small portions of bread soaked in milk and water. Two days afterwards he was able to follow his master a short distance.