JOSH BILLINGS ON DOGS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1293, 10 December 1896, Page 28

JOSH BILLINGS ON DOGS.

As owing to mange, fits, worms, distemper and other diseases, amateur fanciers generally have a good deal of trouble and are put to considerable expense in keeping their dogs in condition, and in getting them into show formj the following advice on liow to Choose a dog and the best breed to keep, by that eminent dog fancier, Josh Billings, may be of use to some of your readers.. He says '. —" Dogs are gitting dredful skase, and if you don't pik one out putty soon, it will be' forever too late. I hav written during my yUnger days, when I knu a good deal more than I do now, or ever shal kho agin, an essa onto dogs, and in that essa i klaimed that the best kind ov a dog for all purposes for a man tew have was a wodden dog, The experience ov years don't seem tew change mi opinyun, and i now az then reckomend the wodden dog— Dogs az a genral thing are arnamental and the wodde*n dog kan be made hily so, after enny pattern or desighn that a kulfcivated taste may suggest—lf the wodden dog iz made with the bark on, so mutch the better for we are told bi those who studdy sich things that dogs which bark never bight. Wodden dogs never stra away three or four times a year like flesh and blood dogs do and don't kost 5 or 10 dollars reward each time tew make them cum bak agin. Wodden dogs don't hav the old hydrophobiskiousness ; neither are they running round, and round, and round and round after them selfs, trieing tew ketch up with a wicked flea, who iz bizzilly engaged knawing away at the dog's continuashun. Thare ain't no better Watch dog in the world than the woddeii dog. Yu set them tew watching enny thing, they will watch it for £$ years, and they ain't kraizy, and want tew juhip thru a window in a minnitt, if they just happen tew hear a boy out in the streets whissling " Yankee Doodle " or " Sally Come Up." Wodden dogs won't stretch themselfs out in front ov the fire place, taking up all the hot room, nor they won't fly at a harmless old beggar man, who only wants a krust and tare him all tew little bits in a minnitt. If yu want tew pik out a good dog, pik out a wodden one, they range in price all the way from 10 cents tew a dollar ackordling tew the lumber in them, old age don't make them kross and useless, and if they do happen tewlozeahed, or a leg, in sum skrimmage a doze ov Spalding's glu, taken at night, jist before they retire, will fetch them all strait in the morning.