Dog meat

“ The meat of this animal, as we saw it, was thought to resemble that of the finest Welsh mutton, except that it was of a much darker colour. Having so far overcome our repugnance as to taste it, we no longer wonder that the dog should be considered a dainty dish by those in whom education has not created a prejudice against this flesh. In China it is said that fatted pups are frequently sold in the market-place; and it appears that an invitation to a feast of dog meat is the greatest distinction that can be offered to a stranger by any of the Indian nations east of the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ Raw dog meat may not sound attractive at a distance, or when one is this far removed from the ultimate hunger in which the stomach seems to attack its very self, but there it tasted as good as anything you ever ate. ”

“ However, I do not hanker after dog-meat.
"The Buddhist religion prevails to a great extent here, which diminishes the quantity of beef used, though not so much as the kindly feeling towards the creature that is so useful in tilling the soil. Pork is the most common in use for meat, and the number of pigs raised is enormous. Geese and ducks are abundant, artificially hatched as in ancient Egypt, [305] and to a considerable extent in America, and are largely used for food.
"The sea, rivers, and lakes supply fish in all needed quantities. ”

“ The raw meat tastes excellently to the dog; it eats for hours at a time; the secretion of gastric juice begins precisely after five minutes and is very active. With another dog which prefers boiled to raw meat exactly the reverse occurs. Broth, soup, milk—towards which dogs are usually more indifferent than towards solid food—often produce in sham feeding either no secretion at all or only very little, although broth, for instance has essentially the same taste as flesh. ”

“ Their meat is tender and most delicious after one has learned to like the "gamey" flavor. And a change in meat we certainly do need here, for unless we can have buffalo or antelope now and then, it is beef every day in the month—not only one month, but every month.
The prairie-dog holes are great obstacles to following hounds on the plains, for while running so fast it is impossible for a horse to see the holes in time to avoid them, and if a foot slips down in one it means a broken leg for the horse and a hard throw for the rider, and perhaps broken bones also. ”

“ Dog biscuits and the various hound meals, soaked in good broth, may be used with advantage, but no dogs, either large or small, can be kept in condition for any length of time without a fair proportion of meat of some kind. Sheep's paunches, cleaned and well boiled, mixed with sweet stale bread, previously soaked in cold water, make an excellent food and can hardly be excelled as a staple diet. In feeding on horseflesh care should be taken to ascertain that the horse was not diseased, especially if any is given uncooked. ”

“ A very little of these in the regular food is passable, but do not attempt to make a vegetarian of your dog. Corn meal, in its place, is well enough fed occasionally, but as a regular food it is harmful, especially in summer, as it causes skin irritations, because it is too heating. Oat meal is some better, and rice, perhaps, the best of all, but any of these foods should be fed only occasionally. Some breeds, such as Yorkshire terriers, Maltese and the like do very well with little meat and some say they should not have it at all, but even this is questionable. ”

“ If any good is to be done it must be by dieting; and whatever food is given should be dry. Raw, or nearly raw, meat is the best food, for nearly all fat dogs put on this diet lose weight considerably, and at the same time improve in health by becoming brighter and livelier, and more ready to take exercise; but the meat must be given sparingly, say for a small dog like a pomeranian, one ounce and a half twice a day; and for a dog the size of a fox terrier, three ounces twice a day. The worst of this food is, it never seems to satisfy; in fact, a dog fed on raw meat always seems hungry. ”

“ A dog which has not been having much meat, but has been chiefly fed on dog biscuit, may, on the appearance of skin irritation, be given plenty of good, underdone meat—roast mutton, sheep's head, and bullock's heart, all being very suitable. In no case of skin disease should either oatmeal or Indian corn be given; and sea air should be avoided, as it is always aggravating to skin troubles. Tripe is nourishing and very digestible, and fresh fish suits most of the invalids very well. ”

“ Morris could not afford to give to the dogs good meat that she had gotten for her children, so she used to get the butcher to send her liver, and bones, and tough meat, and Mary cooked them, and made soup and broth, and mixed porridge with them for us.
We never got meat three times a day. Miss Laura said it was all very well to feed hunting dogs on meat, but dogs that are kept about a house get ill if they are fed too well. So we had meat only once a day, and bread and milk, porridge, or dog biscuits, for our other meals. ”

“ Meat is the natural food for a dog, and it is a wise kennel man that can improve on nature. Be sure the meat is free from taint, especially at this time and when the bitch is nursing pups. The gastric juice of a dog’s stomach is a great germicide, but there is a limit. ”

“ He is an unenviable possession, but we must make the best of him, coax him with small and frequent meals, for he will often accept a teaspoonful of raw meat minced, or a tablespoonful of cream, where he would not even look at an ordinary dog's meal, and get him up as well as we can for show with a daily new-laid egg, beaten up in a very little milk, and that useful and valuable dog-owner's aid, cod liver oil and malt. ”

“ A change of food is of course desirable. Pointers, Setters, Retrievers, Beagles, Terriers, etc., etc., may have dry dog-biscuits—or soaked if preferred—given to them in a morning, and soaked stale bread—with water squeezed out—mixed with cut-up meat for the evening meal.
Boiled (or raw) paunches make a splendid food for dogs, and have great nutritive value. Boiled rice, flour, and various other meals are suitable, only must have a proportionable amount of flesh added to them.
Many sportsmen believe that flesh destroys a gundog's scenting power, and others that it makes thin dogs hard-mouthed. ”

“ The Food Question—When to Feed—Frequency of Feeding—Water. With but one dog in the household or on the premises, the question of food is not a serious one. The scraps from the table of a family of four should be sufficient to supply the entire ration of the dog, although occasionally it is advisable to give him a change in the way of scraps of raw beef, large, soft bones to gnaw upon, and by variety it might also be well, say once a week, to procure the meat or trimmings at your butcher’s out of which a broth may be made. ”

“ And then he does not eat after the manner of dogs. I never saw a dog with such a lady-like appetite. To eat two small biscuits in succession is generally more than he is inclined to do. When he has meat it is only once a day, and it must be so particularly well cut up and offered to him on a fork, and he is so subtly discriminative as to differences between boiled mutton and roast mutton, and roast chicken and boiled chicken, that often he walks away in disdain, and will have none of it.... ”

“ The meat for the small dogs must be put through a meat chopper and no gristle allowed to get into it; the larger dogs can have bigger pieces, and Achilles a bone. You will find in the room inside an ice chest in which to keep such foods as spoil. There are also glassed-in shelves where tins of various kinds of dog bread and puppy biscuit will be stored that they may be out of the dampness. You are not to trouble the servants at the big house for anything. They do not like to be interfered with. ”

“ The dog in its wild state is nearly, if not wholly, carnivorous, but when domesticated becomes omnivorous and therefore thrives best on a mixed diet of bread, meat, and vegetables. Excepting when training or hunting your dogs, a purely meat diet is not desirable any more than it would be for a human being. ”

“ Neither should the nature of the food itself be disregarded. Oatmeal or ship-biscuit ought always to be given, if alone the better, else rice upon which gravy has been poured. Meat, when allowed, should be lean, and the coarser the better. Paunch or tripe is excellent food for dogs, and for a continuance I have found nothing agree so well. Horse-flesh or any [Pg 93] such filth is never to be allowed; this kind of food being very apt to generate diseases of the skin. Dogs will thrive on liver, but it is too valuable an article of diet for these creatures to be regularly given. ”

“ Persons having lap-dogs will moreover find the keep upon rice, properly seasoned, or soaked in gravy, less liable to render these creatures strong or tainted than the provender which is choicely selected from the joint provided for the family dinner. The warm meat too often presented to these creatures is apt to enfeeble their digestions; for their stomachs are soon deranged, and they never should be allowed to taste any kind of food which is not perfectly cold. ”

“ Oatmeal porridge, rice, barley, linseed meal, and bone meal ought only to be regarded as occasional additions to the usual meat diet, and are not necessary when dog cakes are regularly supplied. Well-boiled green vegetables, such as cabbage, turnip-tops, and nettle-tops, are good mixed with the meat; potatoes are questionable. Of the various advertised dog foods, many of which are excellent, the choice may be left to those who are fond of experiment, or who seek for convenient substitutes for the old-fashioned and wholesome diet of the household. Sickly dogs require invalid's treatment ”

“ And then there is the obvious advantage that dog can be fed on dog. One can reduce one's pack little by little, slaughtering the feebler ones and feeding the chosen with them. In this way they get fresh meat. Our dogs lived on dog's flesh and pemmican the whole way, and this enabled them to do splendid work.
And if we ourselves wanted a piece of fresh meat we could cut off a delicate little fillet; it tasted to us as good as the best beef. The dogs do not object at all; as long as they get their share they do not mind what part of their comrade's carcass it comes from. ”

“ When I feed beef, I have a small axe with which I chop all the bones into fine pieces. They also get scraps from the table with some vegetables mixed with cooked rolled oats. I feed the old ones once a day with raw meat and once with porridge. I see that they get just enough to keep them always in good running condition, that is neither fat nor thin. I like a dog with a good rolling skin. I never take a skeleton dog in the woods as I have often seen hunters going deer hunting with dogs which you could read a newspaper through. ”

“ With this in mind, the dog owner is enabled to feed intelligently. Naturally, change of environment from his wild state has made conditions different; he does not obtain the amount of exercise that his wild ancestors did, ranging and roaming about the country in search of their daily sustenance, consequently he cannot be fed entirely the same, but nevertheless the idea which through some unknown way became prevalent years ago that meat is injurious to dogs and likely to cause disease is entirely erroneous. ”

“ Some persons are in the habit of using barleymeal unprepared, but this is thought by many to be less nutritious. Others are of opinion that oatmeal and barleymeal in equal proportions form a preferable food. In either case the meal should be made into porridge, with the addition of a little milk, and occasionally the kitchen offal, such as remnants of butchers' meat, broth, and soups, the raspings and refuse of bakers' shops, or hard, coarse, sea-biscuit (sold as dog-biscuit) , well soaked and boiled with bullocks' liver or horseflesh. ”

“ Scraps of all sorts from the table tend best to preserve the dog’s health.
For toy dogs well-cooked rice, finely chopped boiled tripe, warm milk, and lean meat scraps from the table, mixed with vegetables, should form the common diet. As these dogs are very light eaters, they may be fed three times a day, care being exercised that they do not overload their stomachs at any time. ”

“ The natural food of the dog is flesh, and it is found that those in a wild state prefer it to every other kind of nutriment, but as raw meat engenders ferocity, it should not be given too freely, especially to house-dogs and such as are not actively exercised. The dog can subsist on many kinds of food, and it is a curious fact, that when fed entirely on flesh he will sometimes get lean ”

“ In this manner I have kept dogs from the polar regions, in comparative comfort, whilst many native-born and neglected have been scalded into fits, paralysis, rabies, or hydrophobia.
"In the hot season, with young dogs, raw meat should be avoided, except it be quite fresh, and then they should not be over-fed, especially if debarred of abundant exercise, and excluded from their own natural medicine, grass. A dog will often thrive better on raw meat than on any other food, and will grow larger ”

“ Some people think that raw meat is bad for dogs, but a limited quantity of fresh lean meat is really necessary for growing dogs, and being on the bone necessitates a lot of gnawing, which is good for the teeth and encourages the flow of saliva which aids digestion. ”

“ The lean of good fresh beef is of a bright red color, a fine close grain, and feels tender to the touch on pinching it between your thumb and finger. The fat is firm and very nearly white. The suet about the kidney, firm and quite white. If, on the contrary, the lean is coarse, tough, and of a dull color, and the fat scanty, yellow, and moist, do not buy that meat for any purpose. The same rules will apply to mutton. If the weather is so cold that the meat is frozen, thaw it by lying it all night or early in the morning in a tub of cold water. ”