Now as to feeding of puppies. As soon as they are weaned, which should be done gradually, and which you will find under head of "Breeding," their food should consist of boiled or scalded milk (never feed raw milk to puppy) in which soak some bread. Potatoes and gravy, bread and gravy, and soups with plenty of vegetables in, such as carrots, turnips, beets and rice. Chicken gravy or the gravy from stewed giblets in which some flour has been added, is a very nourishing and favorite food for puppies. If the scalded milk is found to be too constipating, add some oatmeal porridge to thicken it. When he is cutting his teeth, crumbs of toast, hard cracker or crusts of stale bread are needed. No one cares to eat the outside slice of a loaf, so that may be made stale, hard, and broken up for the Uttle dog, well soaked in the soup or milk. Spratt's Patent makes a special puppy biscuit that is very good to feed to the youngsters as soon as their teeth will admit of chewing same, which biscuit should be broken up into small pieces. You can also feed this softened in soup. When the puppy is about up to three months old, I would then give this biscuit for one meal a day, fed dry but broken into small pieces. A very little cooked beef and mutton, cut up very fine can now be given mixed in with their other foods, and some of the mush of stale bread (see article on Feeding) will be all right to give them, in which you can mix thoroughly the finely cut up meat, but not too much meat until a little older. Puppies up to three months of age should be fed four times a day and then gradually cut down to three meals a day, which will generally be often enough to feed until they get to be from four to five months old. At six months old, or about there, I put them on the regular bill of fare with the grown dogs, excepting that their portion of cooked meat is not so liberally dealt out at supper, but the large bones they have free access to with the older dogs. I don't believe in keeping a puppy on a milk diet too long, and think it best to break them off from this when they get along to be three or four months old and let water be their drink.

Burn all your chicken, turkey and fish bones or any small bones like those from a lamb chop. Small bones are dangerous. Dogs chew them up rapidly and being tender, make slivers of them, and if one of these small slivers gets into a dog's throat the wrong way or fails to pass through without any detention - it's generally a case of "good-bye dog." Many dogs have died from this alone.

Avoid sharp bones, especially fish and chicken bones, as you would poison, for they frequently are more effective in killing a dog than is strychnine or some other deadly agent; in that poison can be neutralized by powerful antidotes or removed by the use of emetics, while a bone finds its way into the intestines and does its deadly work without hindrance.

Confections, cake and dainties of all sorts should also be tabooed from the bill of fare; they are not the natural food of a dog, and beside their weakening effect create a false and dainty appetite which interferes with the regular meals, causing a smaller quantity to be consumed owing to desire to get something nice or an artificial repugnance to substantial food if there is a possibility that "sugar" will be forthcoming.

Special article written by Harry W. Lacy, Editor American Fancier:

If you were to ask the average dog owner, who in the course of a year raises some puppies, what he gives the puppies when weaning, the answer would, nine times out of ten, be - "Oh, milk and bread, or milk and oatmeal - something of that sort." Yes, its just this something of that sort that does the mischief, and to add to the trouble he adds water to the milk, usually. Right off the mother the pups are asked at the most critical time of their lives to make good on a diet that contains much less nourishment than they enjoyed with mamma. We have always been interested in the common sense methods as advised by "Great Dane" in his "Dog Feeding Up-To-Date," and especially in his insistence on a familiar topic of advice in these columns whenever we get the chance and that is - feed the bitch.

The proper feeding of puppies is at first effected by properly feeding the dam; and it must needs be commenced before their birth, since, if the bearing mother be underfed, improperly sheltered, over-exercised or other-Wise neglected or overtaxed, the puppies naturally come into the world starvelings, seldom capable of repaying their breeder for the cost and worry of rearing them. If, however, the bitch be kept in vigorous condition with good food and good care, her puppies are ensured an ample store of nourishment whereon to draw for the development of their bodies and constitutions. They are born strong and healthy, and soon commence to suck; and with even fairly good management there is little risk of losing such puppies. Weaklings, on the other hand, frequently require considerable care and attention to raise. The great points at the outset are, of course, to get them to suck within an hour or so of birth and to prevent their being chilled, so that such as are too feeble to reach and pull at the teats must be helped as often as seems needful, some of the milk being pressed out with the finger and thumb. Nothing is so well calculated to make very young puppies grow strongly and vigorously as a bountiful supply of their mother's milk, which, in general, supplies everything required for their proper nourishment. Any bitch capable of nursing her puppies should be made to do so. To needlessly deny a puppy its dam's milk and to substitute artificial means of subsistence is to deprive it of the best safeguard of its life. The first milk or colostrum is laxative in character, and so assists in removing from their bodies waste matters accumulated before birth. Hence, if for some reason or other they do not get this first milk, it is wise to give each a drop or two of castor oil in warm milk instead.

Where it becomes necessary to substitute cow's milk for that of the dam, it is, as previously explained, essential to make it as similar as possible in composition and richness to the milk the puppies would naturally obtain. It is apparent that the milk of the bitch is about thrice as rich in protein and fat as is that of the cow, so that, if we propose to use cow's milk for puppies, we must correspondingly increase its protein and fat.

This can be approximately done by heating the milk until some two-thirds of its volume have evaporated. No nutrients are lost, only water being given off, so that the result is a concentrated milk thrice as rich as ordinary cow's milk. A better and more convenient plan is to add to each half-pint of fresh cow's milk two to two-and-a-half ounces of full-cream milk - powder. The concentrated milk-food thus prepared is approximately thrice as strong as cow's milk, so that puppies only require one-third as much of it. At 3 weeks old the following quantities are appropriate: Toy puppies, 1 teaspoonful; Fox-terrier-sized puppies, 1 desertspoonful; .Collie-sized puppies, 3 teaspoonfuls; and largest-breed puppies, a tablespoonful. These quantities may be given 5 or 6 times a day in addition to the mother's milk, and may be slowly increased as necessary.

For breeds in which small size is essential, as, for instance, in terriers and toys, concentrated puppy foods must be used with caution and not continued longer than is necessary, lest they make the dogs grow too big. Improved nourishment necessarily implies increased bodily development; and one of the most successful and observant breeders of Scottish terriers recently told the writer that he has had to altogether abandon the use of such foods because they made his dogs grow too big.

Little puppies fed upon plain cow's milk have either to go short of proper nourishment or to overtax their stomachs by loading them with about thrice the bulk of food for which they have natural capacity. Viewed from this standpoint, the plight of poor little wretches fed on diluted cow's milk is evil indeed. We have all of us seen puppies grudgingly allowed just enough nourishment to live upon until they are able to take care of themselves - poor, sunken-eyed, half-starved little creatures that do somehow manage to pull through on bread and watered milk, on which they gorge themselves when they get a chance until it is a marvel they do not burst and thus end their miserable existence. No wonder that such of them as struggle through to maturity make small, pot-bellied dogs. It is the worst possible policy to breed good puppies and then starve them.