The reader ought now have a near idea of the dietetic treatment required by the average puppy, which is to be found among all varieties excepting toys and others that must be kept down to certain weights, fixed by standards, in order to be able to compete in their various classes at dog shows. In other words he is a puppy to whom size, health, strength and endurance are essentials of infinite importance.

Among the so-called toys there are some fairly robust, but taken as a whole they must be considered delicate compared with other members of their race, while some are notoriously lacking constitutionally. And this is due to the persistent efforts to get the smallest, but not, as some writers have stated, to a persistent selection of the smallest for breeding, for as a matter of fact only a very few of the smallest toys will breed.

Obviously no one rule can be fixed for these varieties, and the limits of the digestive powers must be carefully studied in every instance and the feeding be in accordance with them.

For most puppies of toy breeds new milk must be the principal food during the month after weaning, and this can be occasionally thickened slightly with bread, crackers or well-boiled rice. Mutton or beef broths can then be allowed, but in the beginning they must be as thin and as sparingly used as in cases of infants taking them for the first time.

To feed only a very little and very often must be the rule with the smallest of these, and once in an hour and a half will be near right for about a month after weaning. Then a trifle longer intervals will be allowable, but they must be very slowly and gradually lengthened, for even when mature toys should have food several times in the day.

In feeding toys and other varieties which it is desirable to keep down in weight breeders must have before them the fact that the animal foods, milk and meat, alone and uncombined with other substances, tend to produce firmness of flesh with an absence of superfluous fat; while on the other hand vegetable foods, and particularly the starches, favor the laying on of fat. They must also bear in mind that animal foods abound in the materials for bone and muscle building; and while in moderate quantities they do but little more than meet the wear and tear of the body and keep the muscles firm and complete, if they are given in excess they tend decidedly to increase the size of the bony structure and amount of muscle or flesh.

That there may be no mistake these physiological facts are simplified and dressed for practice: Give puppies the animal foods, meat and milk, in moderate quantities only and they will be likely to keep down in bone and muscle; give them vegetable foods in large quantities and the tendency will be merely to fatten; give animal foods in large quantities and the chances are many that the puppies so fed will in consequence increase rapidly in bone and muscle.

Evidently, therefore, in order that puppies may be kept down in weight and size and still be strong and healthy their breeders must feed with exceeding nicety. They must rely largely upon milk, and the quantity of this even must be restricted as nearly as possible to the actual requirements of the body as it then stands, for excess would favor increase in the size of the frame and amount of flesh.

But even in large quantities milk does not tend to fatten if deprived of its cream, yet this is the specially force-producing part, and were milk largely depended upon, to deny very young puppies this part would be to invite weakness and frailties beyond those they inherited. Therefore it would be better to give them new milk for the first month or two, and when they are strong and active - that is for their kind - use skimmed milk or buttermilk largely; and they can generally be safely allowed these at frequent intervals. But it must be little and often even with milk, and a fairly large quantity during the day; and on no account should they be given a large quantity at any one feeding.

All this bears as well on other varieties that must be kept down in size and weight in order to be able to pass under the standard. Their food must be principally animal - milk or meat - and what starchy substances are given them must be reduced in quantity as soon as they put on too much fat; while too rapid growth in frame and muscle will call for a reduction in the quantity of animal food, and especially the meat.

As for the use of vegetables, the safest rule is to allow them only such as grow above ground, as spinach and other "greens," lettuce, nettle tops, squash, etc., for those from below the ground, as potatoes, carrots, beets and the like are decidedly fattening.

Returning to delicate toys and considering them without reference to ages, the fact appears that those with long coats, as Yorkshires and Maltese terriers, cannot bear much meat because of its stimulating properties, and when given in excess it not only tends to create internal derangement and disease but "heats up their blood." This condition in turn excites skin affections, especially those attended with intense itching, and has a ruinous effect on the coat. And the same evils of excess of meat appear in some of the short-coated toys - the black-and-tan terriers, for instance - in which such skin diseases are never easily cured.

But while toy terriers are easily injured by excess of meat they must not be deprived of this food, and although much of it may be in the form of broths or extracts, - as the "blood gravy" from roast beef or mutton - under ordinary conditions they should have one of these meats at least once a day.

New milk should constitute their breakfasts, luncheons in the middle of the afternoon, and the last meal at bedtime - late in the evening - if one is allowed them.

Fresh tripe that has been boiled in milk and then chopped fine is very acceptable to these little ones, and mixed with a small quantity of boiled barley - the same being softened with a little of the milk in which the tripe was boiled - does nicely for the feeding in the middle of the forenoon.