NOTES BY TERROR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2362, 1 June 1899, Page 40

NOTES BY TERROR.

# - 1 learn from the Bruce Herald that during the last few weeks the dog fiend has been at his work in the township of Milton. - Several local people have lost valuable dogs through poison administered by some un- . known person in town. During last week alone Mr Draper lost a valuable sheepdog, Mr Murphy a fox-terrier, and Mr Anderton three beautiful black-and-white terriers. !A collie dog belonging to Mr Anderton had l^aken poison, and was only saved by prompt land careful treatment. The above dogs, though valuable to their owners, were not so widely known as one which died from the effects of poison on Friday last— viz., a beautiful St. Bernard, owned by Mrs G. Roberts, of the Royal Hptel. This dog, called Boatswain, was the pet of the children of the township. He used to walk towards the school occasionally, and several of the children would run up to him and cling on to his ears, neck, and tail, while one of them would give him a schoolbag to carry. These children will no doubt miss Boatswain. One can Qasily imagine that this dog must have been very quiet and good-tempered, and as he was never known to attempt to bite anyone, it cannot be understood why any man should (Wish to do away with him. A man, who, /without giving due notice, lays poison for dogs in the town, should be ferreted out and made an example of, and we can only hope that the people who have lost their dogs by poison, Will do their utmost to discover the culprit. Several owners have taken a warning, and ihave chained their dogs in their backyards until the poison scare is past. — -Mr Fred. E. Purkis, hon. treasurer of the National Canine Defence League, received a letter from " Ouida," in which she said: — " It is urgently necessary to excite the attention of the public to the facts of a dog murder committed at Finchley, and brought before the bench at Highgate, on March 8 of this year. Is every kind of illness in a dog to be dealt with as a crime? Is every title of proprietorship, and every legal and moral right of his owners to be ignored? Is every policeman to be at liberty to brain any animal met fey him on his beat whose pain appears to him 4o be fault which merits death? Are magistrates to be allowed to preside at a- Police Court merely to demoralise the public mind by encomiums upon such actions? Of what

use is it to punish other kinds of cruelty when such cruelty as this is excused, nay, lauded by a person vested with authority? With what justice is a poor man fined for cruelty when a magistrate dares publicly to praise the liveried official who considered sickness as an offence only to be treated by the blows of his loaded truncheon? The Board of Agriculture, the magistracy, and the police, are teaching brutality by object lessons to the manhood and youth of Great Britain, in a manner with which it is hopeless for any human influence or education to contend. The character of the nation is being poisoned at its roots."

— During 1898 as many as 23,940 dogs were received at the Battersea. Dogs' Home, and 19,624- of these were brought by the Metropolitan police under the muzzling order, 2888 were received under the Metropolitan Streets Act, having been found lost in the streets, but wearing muzzles, and 1351 were brought to the home to be destroyed in the lethal chamber. Altogether 2044 of the dogs were restored to their owners on payment of a small fee. The cats' houses received 620 inmates during last year. A brief address was given by the chairman, and the meeting passed a hearty vote of thanks to the secretary, Mr Henry J. Ward, to whose energies the successful carrying out of- the work was stated to be mainly due. — In estimating the daily amount of meat required by dogs some modification is allowable, and often demanded, according to the physical condition. Considering the. fact that this food tends to produce firmness of muscle with an absence of superfluous fat, while vegetable food, on the other hand, tends to increase the deposition of fat, manifestly in many instances of underweight, it is advisable to give less meat and more vegetable food. In some instances, also, the requirements are the reverse of these, and, as always with bitches that are too fat, it is necessary to feed largely, if not entirely, on meat until good form is restored. This, by the way, bears specially on bitches that are not in pup. And yet sv<ch treatment would be safe for those that were, provided with them the increase in the amount of meat was' made gradually, and there was a corresponding increase -in the amount of exercise. But lest the reador draw wrong conclusions here it is urged that assuming the bitch to be one that had 'been accustomed to a diet consisting of about one third meat, to put her on to all meat while she was in whelp would be hazardous in the extreme were she afterwards given the same amount of exercise which she had been having and no more. Furthermore, during gestation a bitch could not. safely baar the amount of work that a dog fed entirely on meat must have had she been given but an average amount of exercise up to that period. In estimating the daily amount of meat an allowance must be made for the season of the year, since the digestive and all other functions of the body vary under the influence of cold and heat — the former stimulating them, and the latter depressing thorn. And manifestly wers these variations ignored, and the same quantity of neat given daily all the year round, diarrhoea and other disturbances of the digestive organs would be likely to occur in hot weather ; moreover, the tendency to skin diseases, attended with intolerable itching, would then be decidedly greater in consequence of the system being clogged with impurities which ore inevitable where the excretory organs are unnecessarily taxed, as they always are when too much animal food has been taken into the. stomach. Possessing as they do the power of . accommodating themselves to changes in diet, quite pronounced individual peculiarities in relation to tolerance of certain foods must often be encountered in clogSj and these must be considered in estimating the quantity of meat required. For instance, toy terriers cannot bear much meat, because they are peculiarly susceptible to its stinmlating effect, and are quickly and seriously disturbed by an excess ; the result of which are an impairment of the integrity of the blood, a feverish condition of the system, skin eruptions, and falling off in coat. Again, there are physiological drains upon the constitution such as that felt by the nursing mother or by the dog much used in the stud, and unusual demands upon it, as in sickness, which have to be provided for by an increase of the daily quantity of meat. It must be remembered, also, that in many morbid conditions this food must be almost wholly relied upon, not only because there is a decided repugnance for nearly all other foods, but because this is the only one that languid digestion can readily dispose of. Meat produces a greater feeling of satiety than any other food, and forms a greater stay to the stomach because that ors?an is the seat of digestion, and is occupied by it for a longer time. And this fact has a bearing on the question of quantity, for obviously a dog fed once a day only can dispose of, and more than likely requires, ii greater qiiantity of meat daily than another given two or three meals each day. It is plainly evident from this that dogs cannot be fed by rule, and that the proportionate ingredients of their diet must be intelligently estimated ar.d varied according to existing circumstances.

FADS AND FADDISTS. Dear Terror, — Several articles have appeared in the Fanciers' Column lately which would doubtless be read with special interests by shepherds, but none more so than the one referring to Dr. Gordon Stables on " Brainless Monstrosities." It is abundantly evident that the trend of opinion amongst genuine collie fanciers is becoming more and more decided against the awarding of prizes to a class of animals which in essential points bear lHfcfe, if any, resemblance to their progenitors of 30 years ago, or to their useful working brethren of to-day. Notwithstanding all that lias been said to the contrary, colour has been, and still is an important consideration with many judges. Twenty years ago black and tan was the rage, and a dog with any other markings, no matter how good his other points might be, had very little chance of getting into the prize-list. Then black, tan, and white came into fashion, and was in turn discarded somewhere about 15 years ago for sable.

Concurrently with these changes of fashion in colour the conformation of the head has been undergoing a process of improvement, with results that are deplored by all lovers of the sheep dog, and which has led up to an army of " brainless monstrosities " being lauded and held up as the elite "par excellence " of the collie world. ■ Now, in settling the blame for this state of affairs I observe that the weight is placed on judges. Rightly so, I admit, but I would urge " extenuating circumstances" on their behalf. Judges are only human, and though a few of them may not be much troubled witli a conscience, a still fewer number are prepared to face the hostile criticism of a host of kennel writers, which would inevitably follow on the reversing of popular decisions. Therefore, with all due deference, I submit that while much of the blame rests with judges, to kennel writers may be attributed in no less degree the following up of these modern fads which has ca.lled forth from Dr. Gordon Stables a vigorous and .well-timed protest. Coming now to whore the writer of the

article which appears in the Witness of the 11th inst. draws comparisons between Home and. colonial show collies, it is quite evident that he is here beyond his depth, and that he is not writing from personal observation, or, if so, his " wisdom is somewhat limited." Here in New Zealand we have admittedly some first class specimens of collies, the type of which I am certain would be warmly c.ommended by judges of Dr. Gordon Stables' s way of thinking, but to say that we have not been led away by any of the new-fangled ideas " is, to put it mildly, a "fundamental inexactitude." Speaking from personal observation in Home and Colonial dog shows, I have no hesitation in saying that I have seen judging in New Zealand, which, in the language of the writer in qxiestion, would " have made the blood of DrGordon Stables tingle." I cannot, therefore, see that any good purpose is served by a visitor of any standing complacently observing that " we are not following on the lines of English faddists," when repeatedly at Colonial shows typical sheep dogs have been beaten by animals whose imbecile expression was altogether incompatible with the idea that they could be trained to be useful shepherd's dogs. The fact is, here as at Home, we have men who readily respond to invitations to judge who do not know the rudiments of the work they undertake, and while this remains the order of things we may expect a certain amount of chaos in collie judging. — I am, etc.,

STATION SHEPHERD.