A Manual of Toy Dogs; how to breed, rear, and feed them

Excerpt: ... is taking a full teaspoonful twice a day. It is a wonderful hair producer. Cod liver oil alone, without the malt, is of much less use, and cheap preparations of either or both are to be sternly avoided; in the nature of things, such a medicine cannot be cheap, if it is to be thoroughly good. And here, I may remark, that because we are only dealing with a dog is no reason why we should put cheap drugs of any kind into him. His system is just as beautiful and delicate in its balance as that of a human being, though his teeth and his digestion may be stronger-such is not invariably the case by any means-and the administration of impure or adulterated medicine is just as great a cruelty to it as to the human machinery. To give a toy dog crude cod liver oil, imperfectly purified, because it is cheap, is like expecting to do fine carving upon oak with a hatchet, because it is oak and not satin-wood. Internal Parasites.-In no case has modern progress in knowledge disclosed more fallacies, held formerly as firm beliefs, than where the internal parasites-which for our present purpose, this being only a popular manual, Pg 53 may be classed as tape-worms and round worms-of the dog are concerned. Only a few years ago, if a dog suffered from skin disease in any one of its several forms, "worms" were at once cited as the cause. Now we know-or rather, those among us know, who either have some understanding of canine anatomy and physiology or will take the word of the scientist for it-that worms cause nothing: they are not a cause, but an effect. They are a symptom of anæmia; and as skin trouble almost invariably accompanies any severe degree of anæmia in dogs, skin trouble and worms are usually found together. We cannot, therefore, cure dogs of harbouring worms by giving expellent doses, no matter how glowingly advertised and boomed, of the various irritant drugs which act as vermifuges. We can only by this means...