THE KENNEL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2685, 30 August 1905, Page 31

THE KENNEL.

Br Tekbob.

(Ftnciers and breeaers of dogs are cordially invited to contribute items te this column. " Terror " will endeavour to make iis department as interesting and up-to date as possible, but in Older t» do this he must have the co-oueratiou of his readers bence he trusts this invitation will be cheerfully responded to.] —Mr E. Webster has sent Chingford Nipper to Wellington. — Mr Neill's eh. EdenbhoTpo Spot has whelped three dogs and a bitch and Chingford Squib three pups (two dogs and one bitch) to Chingford Bob. I understand tho breeder of these wirehairs is going to offer the majority of the pups' for sale, thus presenting- a great opportunity to young fanciers of getting into a grand strain and rising- fancy. — Mr Webster's Glendon Mist andi Mr Hides's eh. liiadeu Wanda are both visiting Mr Hamilton's Diablo First. Enterprise such as these two fox-terrier fanciers aro exhibiting deserves the encoiu*agoment of ready sales of surplus stock. — Tho last .fortnightly part of Harmswcrth'fi Encyclopaedia contains a briof article on the bulldog. We don't knowsays Our Dogs, or want to know, who vsa'ote it, but it is not at all the sort of

thing that should appear in a work intended for general reference. We ourselves have, before now, expressed a. strong opinion as to the lines on which modern brooders are inclined to go, but we havn never said anything quite like this, and we can only think that the writer, in his wish to work up what ho thinks a readable article, has let himself ha biassed even be yond his true opinion — always providing; that he is qualified to express an opinion, which, from his stated views, does not seem quite evident. He says, to begin with, that "the courage of the modern animal is generally tempered by a host of ailments." It might be correct to say that the modern animal is somewhat more liable to ailments than his ancestors, but no ailment or tendency to ailment can "temper ' courage. It may make the dog more or less incapable of making the most of the pluok that is in him, but it will not make him cry a go — which, if anything, is what the phi-ase means. "The bulldog," this pseudo-expert »oei3 on to say, "is of a surlydisposition, and' not capable of strong attachment," while, because ''in attack it is sil«nt, ' it '"cannot be accounted a good watch dog." Comment on these pronouncements, is unnecessary. "Face as short as possible," in the description, is another fallacy, though, this time, in favour of tho modern fancier rather than of hi 3 critic. A short face is wanted, of course, but emphatically not a "face as short a3 possible," which is incompatible with :i properly full nose; and, indeed, with ability to hold and keep hold, if the under jaw is all that it should be. A kinked tail is given a? a point to be striven for, white is "preferred" as a colour, and the action is described as "rather slovenly '' That last phrase appears, if we are not nn> taken, in the standard description drawn up by the Bulldog Club of America; but it is, surely, "rather slovenly" writing, the action i^ different from that of other breeds, but it is due to conformation, and to ca.ll it "slovenly" shows an inadequateknowledge of the meaning of the word or an ignorance of the fact that build and gait are correla-tive. As to white being the preferred colour, some old fanoiers and some who cannot lay claim to be old ones, ourselves among them. do like whites oi pies better than anything else ; but white i* certainly not the colour rno&t desired today. Brindled dogs are "the" go, as is shown by the fact that brindled puppies are much more readily sold than those of other colours, especially if they have kinked tails. It is all, of course, a matter of fashion, where it ie not one of ignorance. The fashion part of it time only can remedy, as time has a way of doing in regard to fashion freaks as the years go by; the ignorance will remain — if the public dj rives its bulldog '"knowledge" from cheap encyclopaedias.

— The Umpire records an interesting encounter between a small fox terrier and a cobra, 4ft Sin long, which the dog succeeded in killing by crunching the- leptilo's head. The fox terrier belonged' to 'Mr S. George Buchan, who narrates""' the- story of tho fight as follows: — "Two hours, after the fight, which took place early in th-a day, the dog's lower jaw seemed swollen, he was carefully examined, but there was no trace of a wound anywhere. About nightfall the swelling grew worse, extending to his face and neck. Poppy fomentation was used to the swollen parts, and a purge (nut and milk) administered next morning. The brave Jittlo terrier is a little bettor, but of course far from lively. I shall feel thankful to any of your readers who may kindly help me as to a solution of tho cause of the intense swelling. First of all, th© snaJte was undoubtedly a cobra, but there is no wound or puncture. Could it be that while crushing the "head of the reptile some small portion of its poi-son was a-bsorbed in the mouth? For my part, I think so, and it is just possible, too, thai, as the glands of the neck are said to perform the part of filters, tho poison has not passed further. "While writing-, I may say for those interested in these matters. t,hat during the dread encounter five other dogs of mine kept aloof, acting the part of spectators. The awe-stricken pack consisted of two fox terrier sluts, one retriever slut, one Scotch collie slut, and an aged bullterrier dog 1 . The little lady terriers were quite excited, and trembled exceedingly when the snake, with hood erect and eyes glaring, hissed loudly. I can soniewhdt account for old Punch (the bull-terrier), who, by the way, has often rendered me yeoman service when out on shikari, keeping aloof. Ho was an eye-witness to his sister Judy'& death, and did not care probably to try conclusions with another opponent of the same class. Judy tackled a cobra about this time last year, and was found dead in the morning with the snake far off, sliced into bits. I must not omic to mention that the plucky little fox terrier regarding which I am writing gave another cobra its quietus some months ago, escaping unscathed. In each encounter he dexterously veered to the back, and sprang to the head."'

— Owners of dogs frequently experience trouble by reason of their animals swallowing sharp-pointed substances, such as fish bones, which become lodged in tho throat. Sometimes the foreign substance is not necessarily sharp, but too large to pass properly down the gullet, and as a result the animal may quickly be choked. Dogs are. greedy animals, and rarely, as a rule, stop to masticate food, unless it be hard biscuit or bone, which they crunch up ; the dog's digestive organs, in fact, were made by Nature capable of digesting large pieces of unmasticated food, and so ifc is quite natural to the dog to swallow its food wholesale. As a matter of fact, there is nothing in common between a dog and human being, co far as mastication is concerned. The dog bolts his food, the human being masticates it carefully. Needles and pins are not infrequently swallowed by pet dogs kept in the house, and! it is easy to see that there is more danger and difficulty about removing a needle from a dog's throat- than there is about removing a largo piece of food. The latter can generally be pushed down by a probang, but as ifc is very improbable that such an instrument will be at hand, anything of a flexible nature, lik© a small piece of cane, "can be used for pushing the obstruction down. Supposing, however, the article swallowed be something with a sharp point like a needle, it is obvious that any attempt to push this down in such a way will tear the gullet, and in so doing may cause a more serious injury still. Supposing a puppy be known to have swallowed a bone, and it does not appear to be lodged in the throat, the best thing to do is to feed him for a day or two on soft food only — oatmeal gruel, or something of that kind, and give him frequent doses of olive oil, not castor oil, the- idea being to fill the alinaenlaiy canal with a solid but soft mass

? of food, by the aid of which the dangerous article which has been swallowed may pc«» sibly be removed. If, however, the needle— if it be a needle, or fish bone, or whatever it is — becomes lodged in the throat, and the. dog keeps making efforts to relieve himself i by attempting to vomit, the best thing to ' do will be to run him off straight away to a veterinary surgeon, or if no veterinary i surgeon be at hand, to an ordinary medical practitioner, and have the stfoslance re» moved with the care which only a veterinary or medical practitioner will know how to exercise. As a matter of fact, small | bones such as appear in fish and in poultry • should not be given to dogs, s-ince they nofi only are a source of danger in the direction just indicated, but they tend to make the animal constipated, and very often occasion a block in the intestines. The intestines of a dog* are very much smaller in circumference than his gullet is, and the fact that a dog can swallow a. bone does not neees-* sarily prove that that bone can pass undigested through his intestines. — Twenty poj dogs and 11 adored cats, have been brutally murdered by a g.avago plumber. The man mended a water-pipe fair a Mme. de 8.. living in the Rue ties Saints Peres, in the Faubourg St. Germain. The» lady resided alone in a flat with the 31 animals mentioned, to which she was fondly attached. The pipe in question was one* which she had hid specially placed to feetl a. trough and bath in the pets' bedroom. The job being done, the plumber sonfe in his bill, which remained unpaid, ip spitat of repeated reminders. He then determined to wreak a cruel revenge on the innocent* animals. Mme. de B. Ijeing ou(, ho brok» open hoi- door, clubbed the adult dogs to death with a stick, threw the puppies out; of the window, and shut the cats in a furnace, where the unhapuy creatures wei'e burnt, alive. The man has beer promptly arrested, and is in gaol waiting piosceutiort for eruolty ro domestic animals. — The Duke of Buccleuch was one of the first to recognise the capacities of the Labrador dog as a retriever, which has of recenti years 1 - come into euclj genera 1 notice among sportsmen. His Grace started his Labrador kennel go far back as 1885, but it was many years after that the Labrador dog becamei recognised as a clever retiiever. The Hon. A. Holland-Hibbert, son of Lord Knufcsford, ha«i also been for many year* an onthusiastic believer in the retrieving capabilities of the Labrador dog.