Kennel Notes.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 7, 30 April 1920, Page 11

Kennel Notes.

The Invercargill Kennel Club have been very busy distributing their show schedules. Any fancisr overlooked should communicate with Mr J. E. Lea, secretary, Box 337, Invercargill, who will be only too pleased to attend to requirements. The schedule is a very good effort for a young club. All breeds have been catered for. In the most popnlar breeds medals have been donated. Special prizes, totalling forty have been allotted and amongst them is a £3 3s special for best dog in show, any breed, accompanied by a cabinet photo donated by Mr Wootton. Runner-up receives £2 2s. A feature of the coming show will be the matter of feeding, which will be done by specialists of the various breeds. The old idea of having only oue man for the whole show is fast losing favour. Breeders are now very keen and a judge of all breeds requires to be a long way above the average to hold his own with the man who specialises in one breed or two at the outside. A Dunedin fancier writes congratulating the Invercargill Kennel Club on their system of judging. A good entry is promised from Dunedin. Christchurch has said nothing so far. Critchfield and Porteous have secured that beautiful smooth fox terrier bitch, "Northland Naomi," from Messrs Woodford and Wilson, of Wellington. She is very well bred, being by Ch. Maid stone Showman — Ch. Goodstuff. "Naomi" has been quite a success on the show benc-h, having won three firsts at Dannevirke and special for best puppy, any j sex. At Wellington dog parade she won first and special for best puppy and was also runner-up to Champion Goodstuff for best terrier in show. We congratulate these young fanciers on their recent purchase and hope to see them well in it when they toe the carpet. POINTS IN PUPPY PRODUCTION. FACTS ON FEEDING FOR BONE AND BUILD. (By Will Hally. ) Concluded. Puppies vary in aggressiveness and some remain unknown babies, while their brother or sister determinedly seeks to see what the world is like outside the box. The box, by the way, is usually a rather "musical" box until the inusicians' eyes are open. As three weeks approach, every puppy should be taught to take an interest in food, and by three weeks or a day or two later, they should be lapping By this method any abrupt change from the maternal to the everyday nourishment is avoided, and by feeding the puppies thus there is no overtaxing of the mother s milk supply, with the result that it never becomes the watery, innutritious, and often harmful mixture which it does if it alone is the family nourishment until the puppies are weaned. Lactol, Puppilac, and Virol are the three standbys from the third to the fourth week, and never later than the twentv-first day the puppies get one of those liquids and a littlc Virol the latter is an acquired taste, as a rule smeared on their noses and inside their mouths. A day or two later they will lap their liquor with a little \ irol in it. At fouv weeks they go on to oat flour, and a teaspoonful of scraped raw meat n given c uce a day. As they approach five weeks the yonngsters get the first taste of puppy biscuit, well soaked with boiling water, squeezed as dry as po > sible, an 1 nk ed with a little raw meat or well-boiled fish. At five weeks the puppies are having four or five meals a day, with Virol as an addition to two of them, and they can now do without tbeir mother most of the day. She is with

them at night until they are over five weeks, but between that and six weeks she is only beside them an hour at night, and the same time in the mori ' At six weeks they are entirely on th- u. And then, cxcept as mere drinks, the liquids are drastically reduced, and four of the six meals are sclids. By this time I am working in a sim.ll quantity of bonemeal — suy a saJt-spoonful — to each puppy twice a day. This quantity, iust as with Vixoi, Ls gT&dually increased, but both bone w«aU and Virol must be given in rcason, and according to the health of the puppy and ihe state of its fcowels, Bone-meal as well as being a bcne-.fofmer, is a splendid safeguard against diarrboea, but too much of :t is indigestible, and it will then actaally cause that ailment. From about six to twelvo weeks ihe puppies have two meals of oat flour and Lactol or Puppilac, and four of the puppy biscuit, mixed half and-ha'f with either weli-boiled sheep's hesd, or sheep's paunch treated in the same wav, or well-boiled fish . What a puppy requires in the w ay of amount at l ach meal must be regulated according to the individual, but at nine weeks the quantity at each meal for a, Ohow puppy should be about half a teacupful. At twelve weeks the meals can be reduced to four a day, arxl at that age a teaspoonful of Virol and a teaspoonful of bone meal can be given twice a day. Each puppy should have a separate feeding dish, and after each morning meal of oat fiour I give a dry puppy biscuit, broken up into pieces easily got hold of. This greatly aids dentition and digestion, and teaches the young idea to eat dry biscuits. At eleven or twelve weeks the puppy can go from puppy biscuits to Weetmeat. But "little and often" should be the menu in all puppy dietary. A heavily filled stomach weighs too heavily on legs that are more gristle than real bone. As a further aid to legs and feet. and to strong pasterns, there is nothing more beneficial than letting the puppy exercise on gravel. Warmth in youth is a great incentive to good size, and that is why bouse-reared puppies, espeeially if they are winterborn, are almost invariably larger than kennel-reared ones. I have not so much as mentioned cow's milk in the foregoing, as while I am aware that many fanciers find it eminently satisfactory, I have found it liighly injurious t-o nearly all the many mammals I have bred at one time or "--M.her. So far as puppies are concerned, v^vv's milk is three parts bulk to one of nourishment. Nothing is a more fruitful cause of diarrohea, and distention and flatulence neajly always follow m its train. In case some economical soul sees in my puppy menu a whole nightmare of "saxpences" "banged" on Virol let me add that he will find an effective subslitute (though one not albogether as good as Virol itself) in the cod liver oil and phosphutes emulsion recommended for the pregnant bitch. That mixture is, however, only a war emergency one, sc far as my own kennels go. Until hostilities temporarily held it up, I used little cise as a tonic and bone-builder for old and young than the qnite marvellons Sanderson's Emulsion, plus the bone-meal for expectant mothers and growing puppies.