ho in their own estimation
are not able to vanquish the many diseases to which the dog is liable.
About every stable are to be met crowds of uneducated loiterers,
possessors of recipes and owners of specifics, eager to advise and
confident of success. I seldom send a diseased dog into the park for
exercise, that my servant does not return to me with messages which
strangers have volunteered how to cure the animal. I hear of medicines
that never fail, and of processes that always afford relief. Persons often
of the upper rank honor me with secret communications which in their
opinion are of inestimable value; ladies frequently entreat me to try
particular nostrums, and sportsmen not seldom command me to do things
which I am obliged to decline. In fact, the man who shall attempt to treat
the diseases of the dog, will have no little annoyance to surmount. He
will soon discover that science unfortunately can afford him but partial
help, while prejudice on every side increases the difficulties with which
he will have to contend.

Happily, however, the majority of pretended cures are harmless. A roll of
sulphur in the animal's water may be permitted, since it amuses the
proprietor while it does not injure his dog. Some of these domestic
recipes, nevertheless, are far from harmless, and they are the more to be
deprecated, because those which most people would imagine to be safe are
the very ones which are attended with the greatest danger. Common salt is
a poison to the dog; tobacco is the source of many a death in the kennel;
castor oil often does the ill which months of care are needed to efface,
even if the life be not destroyed. In the majority of cases vomits are far
from beneficial; bleeding is very seldom required, and the warm bath has
sealed the doom of innumerable animals.

The foregoing observations will have informed the reader of the reasons
that prompt the publication of the present work, which is put forth only
as a step towards the point the author does not yet pretend to have fully
attained. The study of years will be required to perfect that which is now
commenced, and further experience will probably demand the retraction of
many of the opinions herein advanced. The reader will understand, the
author in the present work asserts only that which he now believes. It
must not be imagined, however positive may read the language in which his
sentiments are expressed, that the writer is pledged to uphold any of the