Dogs: Choose your dog, unless he chooses himself by adopting you, with regard for environment. Big dogs require space—big rooms and grounds outside. Small ones are “in drawing” with apartments or modest houses. Breed is a matter of chance or choice. Toy terriers, toy Pomeranians, spaniels, and pugs fit into restricted menages. St. Bernards, collies, greyhounds, wolf hounds, and hunting-dogs in general are miserable in confinement, also miserably out of place.
Teach him obedience first of all, keep him clean and comfortable, never forget him, feed regularly, give constant access to clean water, and always sufficient exercise. Otherwise don’t keep him; neglect is a refinement of cruelty.
Vary the feeding. Dog biscuit day in and out destroys appetite and thrift. Shift every other day to table scraps, oatmeal porridge, cornmeal mush cooked with broth, or raw meat and bones. Give milk almost every day—not too much. Be sparing of the raw meat; a zest suffices. Tiny house dogs ought to have light breakfasts, with a hearty dinner around two o’clock, and nothing more. Dogs running out need much more food, otherwise they get into mischief. A hearty breakfast and dinner with milk and mush at sundown is not too much. Feed all that will be eaten clean; if food is left, diminish the quantity. Leave nothing but bones where a dog may come back to it. Gnawing solid bones helps strength and spirit. Small bones of game or fowl must be given with discretion; they are crunched and swallowed so greedily the sharp ends may do harm if the stomach is too full of them.
A flea-bearing dog is intolerable. Wash in larkspur water (see section Insecticides) or carbolic soapsuds, and comb while in the bath with a fine-tooth comb. Drain off water and fleas, rinse tub, rinse dog well, dry with coarse soft towels, keep muzzled until fully dry, and away from draughts. When fully dry, part hair and blow in behind the ears and along the spine flowers of sulphur mixed with larkspur powder or pyrethrum powder.
For skin troubles, mange especially, bathe well in hot sulphur soapsuds, rinse dry, and rub well into the affected spots unsalted butter washed clean of milk and made yellow with flowers of sulphur. If the trouble persists and the dog is valuable, consult a vet; the dog, perhaps, needs constitutional treatment.
Kennels and doghouses must be clean and dry, baskets and bedding kept clean and free of vermin. Whitewash kennels and doghouses often, putting larkspur infusion or carbolic acid in the whitewash, else mixing in flowers of sulphur. Scald baskets, dry, and paint with turpentine and sweet oil. Lay bedding outside and drench with gasolene. Burn it if mange appears, else it will reinfect the animal. Do not let dogs sleep haphazard anywhere they can. Give them comfortable beds, indoors or out.
A dog running free at exercise needs no clothes. On leash, with his keeper merely walking or sauntering, a warm blanket, or, better, a sweater, is essential in cold weather. Keep dogs outdoors as much as possible in hot weather, but do not let them run too much. Provide shade, especially for guard dogs. Teach all dogs, and especially guard dogs, to refuse food from strangers. This is impossible with a hungry dog. Full feeding guards against foraging at large, the thing which gives poisoners the best opportunity.
Dogs perspire only through the tongue, hence the panting after exertion. Let them drink all they will, but have the water clean. Milk is food, not drink. Do not imagine it takes the place of water. Water, free and clean, is held the best preventive of rabies. In case rabies is suspected isolate safely, and observe for at least a week. Pseudo-rabies, induced by fear, kills many more people than the real thing. An ailing dog, or one tired, thirsty, or lost, will snap at almost anything in his way. Do not on that account condemn him untried to death. Rest, food, and drink, in confinement, will discover his true condition. If madness is proved, kill, quickly and mercifully, burn or bury, disinfect every space he has touched with bichloride of mercury, burn movable boards, litter, ropes, etc. Grass or earth upon which saliva has dropped had better be drenched with kerosene and set on fire.
Cats: Cats likewise suffer rabies; in case of it use the same measures. Cats of fancy breeds are more decorative than plain tabbys, but also more delicate and much less intelligent, withal lacking in affection, and of no use save to look fine.
White cats, especially those with blue eyes, are more savage, less affectionate, and much harder house-broken than black, gray, or tortoise-shell ones. Often the white fellows are deaf. Each and several, cats run wild for reasonable opportunity, yet they bear housing and confinement admirably. They need raw meat, but not too much; a bit of liver or a fish head every other day suffices. Alternately give bones, with the milk and crumbled bread, which is the mainstay of their diet. Give also at night a saucer of pure milk. Water and catnip, green or dry, should be always accessible. Do not overfeed; cats are dainty gluttons if permitted. Keep them thriving, but not fat—fat and indigestion are the roots of disease.
Rid of fleas as directed for dogs. After drying, confine for some time, first giving a saucer of milk with a teaspoonful of whisky or brandy in it. For skin troubles grease all over with the sulphur and butter, confine so as to keep from getting dirty, and wash well after twenty-four hours in hot suds, rinsing well and drying with soft towels. Repeat at intervals as long as needed. Feed on bread and milk, be lavish of catnip, burn infected bedding, wash and fumigate baskets, or treat with bichloride of mercury (see section Disinfectants).
Belgian Hares and Cavies: Both are vegetable feeders. They will live in small quarters, but do better in bigger ones. Keep the quarters clean and sanitary with whitewash and disinfectants. If very small, have floors of loose boards which can be taken up and scalded. Feed three times a day with grain, roots, and green stuff. Be liberal of the green stuff. With a grass run the beasts will supply most of it themselves. Scatter the food, and give only as much as will be eaten clean. Suckling mothers need extra feeds, five a day instead of three.
Dust weekly with sifted ashes, corn starch in powder, and flowers of sulphur. Use in dry weather, putting on at night. Have hutches big enough to prevent crowding. Beware letting your pets overrun the space at command.
Birds: Mocking-birds, cardinals, bullfinches and orioles, all of which it is wicked to keep in cages, need very roomy cages, perches with the bark on, much clean sandy earth on the floors, clean grain, green stuff, ripe fruit, and insects, besides the egg-and-potato mixture which is their mainstay. Tie heads of wheat, oats, or millet to the bars, hang lettuce and peppergrass there, also chickweed in season. Put ripe berries on clean twigs and suspend; force bits of apple and peach between wires close to the perches. Have a swing, a roomy bath, with the usual feed and water cups. Change the water daily, twice in summer. Put one drop of carbolic acid in the bath for insect prevention. Boil eggs twenty minutes, crush the yolk while hot with a freshly boiled Irish potato, season with the least grain of salt and a very little red pepper, and put into the cup. Keep the cage very clean, scald it every three months. Hang it outside in pleasant weather, but never so the sun at midday will strike full on the birds.
Give flies, crickets, earth worms, grasshoppers, but not hairy caterpillars, spiders, nor wasps. Mockers sing almost the night through in spring. To silence them cover the cage with something thick, set where it is very dark, then uncover.
Canaries: A long body and thick smooth plumage are marks of a good canary. Males only sing. Coat color varies. German canaries show many shades of yellow besides mottled tints. Yellow-red Norwich birds owe their giddy coats to red pepper in the food. Unless it is given liberally at moulting-time their fine feathers come back dull and pale. Birds are in full song at a year old. Younger, they have rarely been well taught. The range of life is seven to twenty years; the last is possible only with exceptional birds and still more exceptional care.
Teach canaries to deserve the freedom of the room. It helps in many ways. Leave the cage door open; do not coax him out nor force him in except as a last resort. Rather let hunger take him back. He will learn quickly and enjoy flying about.
A metal cage with a movable floor is the one to choose. Wood invites vermin and harbors it distressingly. Hang where it is neither hot nor cold, away from draughts, but with air plenty. Feed regularly, but do not overfeed. Hemp seed are so fattening they must be given sparingly. The regular bird seed sold in packages is excellent if fresh. A dull appearance is against it; canary seed when not stale is shiny. Empty and fill the seed cup daily, clean the floor, and put down fresh gravel, red and white. Keep cuttlefish bone suspended in the cage, and put in daily some fresh bit of green. Lettuce will answer, but chickweed and peppergrass are better. A pod of Cayenne pepper is good in sharp weather. So is a little hard-boiled egg, lightly dusted with red pepper, or bread crumbs squeezed out of milk and similarly dusted. A droopy bird showing signs of diarrhea should have black-pepper tea to drink, else a strip of fat pork rolled in ground pepper hung where it can be pecked.
Fill the bath every morning. If a bird picks himself after bathing put a few drops of rose water or cologne in the bath. Bare spots from the picking should be rubbed very lightly with sulphur and butter, putting also a little under the wings and back of the neck. Ragged plumage may mean a hardened oil gland. It lies just at the root of the tail and furnishes oil for the coat. Look at it, blowing aside covering feathers. If swollen and inflamed, drop on warm, weak suds from a medicine dropper, dry very gently, and apply a little vaseline. Repeat daily until the gland frees itself of the cake.
Trim nails discreetly, holding to the light so as to miss the tiny vein in them. If cut, hold the bleeding foot a minute in tepid water, dry, and touch the cut with vaseline.
If breeding, separate the pair when brooding begins. Afterward let both feed the young. Provide soft food twice a day—bread crumbs soaked in milk, scraped apple, mashed hard-boiled egg yolk, in addition to seed and bird manna. As soon as it is safe move the whole family into a fresh, clean cage, and scald and fumigate the other. Mites, the bane of canaries, multiply amazingly. They would be invisible but for their blood color. Feeding by day, they quit their prey at night. Throw a sheet of Canton flannel over cages suspected, remove it quickly by lamplight, and plunge in boiling water. Mites will show on it after death. If they are plenty, shift to a clean cage at once and repeat the cloth treatment until all are destroyed. Infested cages should be, after scalding, drenched with gasolene and aired for a week. Scalding with bichloride is also effectual; it must be followed by a scalding in clear, boiling water and a fortnight of airing.
Parrots: If the parrot is for company get a gray African—they make the best talkers and are best tempered. For decoration get the scarlet-crested white fellows, or the yellow and green, or blue and scarlet and yellow. Treatment of either is the same; feed fruit, nuts, grain, a little meat, insects, bread, especially cornbread, and cereals cooked stiff. Parrots learn quickly to eat and drink with their owners. Coffee in moderation is good for them, but they must have water besides. Some thrive better for drinking milk; indeed, the creatures are almost uncannily human in many things. Let them bathe at discretion, provide also a dust bath. Have a roomy cage, a tall, branchy perch, and a hoop swing. Never tease nor tantalize; parrots are cross enough without; also jealous. Do not leave free in the room with a small child. Their beaks are cruelly sharp. Lacking insects, give small lumps of raw mutton fat. Keep everything about them very clean.