The Airedale

by Williams Haynes

In the winter I have found corn meal very acceptable, but the moment hot weather comes along its use should be discontinued, or skin troubles will surely result. It can either be made in a mush with milk or water, or baked into corn bread cakes.

I use a homemade dog biscuit from corn meal and meat in the following way. The meat stock is boiled over night in a kettle and the unstrained soup is used instead of water with the meal in making dough, which is put in pans of two or three inches in thickness and baked in a slow oven till hard all the way through. This will take a day. These cakes are rich and should not be fed too often, but they can be kept a month, and I never saw a terrier that did not relish them. In summer, fish boiled twenty-four hours, till the bones are all soft, makes a nice change from the meat soups of the winter.

There are many who might be called canine vegetarians, but experimenting has convinced me that meat is the best and most natural food for the dog. Sirloin does cost a lot of money these days, but hearts, lungs, heads, odds and ends of ribs, and shank bones do not cost so much, and you can always make arrangements with a butcher to save you these. Under no circumstances feed meat that is decayed. It does not have to be as fresh as you demand for your own table, if you take care to cook it thoroughly, but meat that is mouldy or rotting is poison, not food.

Most kennels feed twice a day,—a light lunch in the morning and the regular day's feed in the evening. The morning bite can be bread or biscuits with a little soup over them. The evening meal ought to be all that the dog will comfortably eat without stuffing. If any food is left in the dishes it should be cleaned away before night, and a dog who is "off his feed" should have attention.

Dogs vary as much as people in the amount they will eat. One gobbler is always thin, while a dainty eater will put on more flesh than necessary. It is the height of foolishness to pamper a dog's taste and make him an epicure, but neither is it wise to treat them all just alike.

Exercise naturally follows feeding in our consideration of the health of the dog. Exercise, and plenty of it, is the best tonic, it keeps the muscles hard and the stomach in shape; it prevents fatness, and is just play for a dog.

There is, however, exercise and exercise. To walk a dog along on a lead is exercise, but three minutes' free running is worth half an hour of "taking the dog out for a walk" after the manner of the young lady who lives in the city. Each kennel should have an exercising yard, a lot as big as possible, where the dogs can be turned out for a romp. One wants to be a little careful about leaving a lot of dogs turned out together, for their likes and dislikes are as strong as our own.

I remember with sorrow an experience of this kind. A recently purchased dog was added to a run full of home bred youngsters, and because he was older and bigger he played the bully till one bright morning three of his victims combined forces and gave him a lesson in manners. It was a lesson for his owner too, for the dog's ear was so chewed that he was ruined for showing.

The last item in the care of the dog is grooming, but it is at least as important as any of the others we have taken up. Most dogs are washed too often and not brushed often enough. Washing once in two weeks in summer and once a month in winter is all that is needed to keep a terrier clean, but he should be brushed daily.

In washing a dog start at the head with a good disinfectant soap and work backwards and downwards, for fleas make for the head when threatened with drowning and only in this way can these pests be gotten rid of. It is well to let the soap stay in the coat a few minutes, but it must be all washed out very carefully before drying the dog.