ifice, by
making only pressure, instantly divides the sac. Frequently considerable
fluid escapes; the beast operated upon makes up its mind for a good howl;
but, finding the affair over before its mouth was moulded to emit the
sound, the cry is cut short, and the dog returns to have the tape removed,
that it may lick the hand that pained it.

[Illustration: A DOG TAPED OR MUZZLED FOR OPERATION.]

After the enlargement is slit up, nothing more is required than to fill
the sac for a day or two with lint soaked in the healing fluid; and when
suppuration is established the lint may be withdrawn, and the wound, if
kept clean, left to nature.

THE EYE.

Most writers describe a regular series of disorders associated with the
eye of the dog. I must be permitted to recite only those which I have
witnessed; and surely, if the diseases which the writers alluded to above
have mentioned do exist, I must have encountered some solitary instance of
each of them; instead of which, I have been honored by the confidence of
all classes, and have after all to confess I have not witnessed a specimen
of genuine ophthalmia in this animal.

CATARACT.--This derangement of the visual organ is very common with the
dog. Every old animal that has lost his eyesight is nearly certain to be
blind from cataract. The optic nerve appears to have retained its health
long after the crystalline lens has parted with its transparency. The
latter becomes opaque, while circumstances allow us to infer the former is
yet in vigor; for certainly dogs do see through lenses, the milky or
chalky aspect of which would justify us in pronouncing the sight quite
gone. There is no precise time when cataract makes its appearance. It may
come on at any period or at any age. It may be rapid or slow in its
formation; but from its generally known habit, we should be inclined to
say it was rather slow than otherwise; though upon this point the author
can speak with no certainty. No breed appears to be specially liable to
it, but all seem to be exposed to it alike. The small-bred, house-kept,
high-fed dogs, however, are those most subject to be attacked by it; for,
in these kinds of animals, on account of the derangement of the digestive
organs, the eyes seem to be disposed to show cataract earlier than in the
more robust creatures of the same breed.

The cause of this affection is, in the horse, usually put down to blows;
but, in the dog, we dare not say the disorder