a professor of Particular
Anatomy, whose duty it is specially to instruct the pupils concerning the
dog. The lectures, however, embrace but little, and that little is
principally devoted to wandering remarks upon the osseous structure. Of
the value of such teaching some opinion may be formed when the skeleton at
the College actually exhibits the bones placed in wrong or unnatural
situations. After the proof thereby afforded, with what reliance can any
sane mind accept the awful declarations of those anatomists who, upon the
living bodies of these creatures, have, according to their own accounts,
exhibited a nicety and certainty of skill which the profoundest
acquaintance with the various structures and parts would still leave
incomprehensible? Such reports evidence only the presumptuous folly of
individuals--the publication of such records testifies no more than the
ignorance of the age.

_To give medicine to the Dog_ often creates more bustle than the magnitude
of the creature appears to justify. Moreover, if the parties concerned in
the undertaking are not quite up to their business, the animal, which,
between its gasping, howling, and struggling, will find time to bite,
increases the activity by provoking human exclamations. I have known this
species of confusion to have been continued for half an hour; during which
work was stopped in a forge, and three brawny smiths joined a veterinary
surgeon's efforts to give a pill to a little spaniel that could not have
weighed above eight pounds. The dog was beaten and hands were bitten, but
after all no pill was swallowed. The result was the natural consequence of
the manner of proceeding. No man should contend with an animal, and
especially with a dog, whose excitement soon renders it incapable of
obedience.

With brutes of every kind, if the mastery cannot, by a bold stratagem, be
gained at once, it should be only established through the confidence of
the animal, which a few acts of kindness will, in the majority of cases,
easily win. I have had dogs brought to me which seemed disposed rather to
part with life than permit their jaws to be handled. The poor beasts had
been harshly used by the persons who had previously undertaken to treat
them. These creatures have remained with me, and in a little time have
grown so submissive that my shop-boy could with ease give any kind of
physic which I ordered to be prepared. Firmness and kindness were the only
stratagems I employed.