The "scraps" and dog cakes insufficient, and it being necessary to prepare food specially for several large dogs, some such custom as the following may wisely be instituted during cold weather: Put one pailful of beef trimmings into a kettle and add two and one-half pailfuls of water, a few potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, parsnips, or the like, not forgetting two or three onions, which in small quantities are appetizing to dogs as well as man. All this should be seasoned with two good handfuls of salt. And salt, by the way, should always be added to broths, "puddings" and all other kinds of foods which man would wish seasoned were they for him. Now let it simmer for several hours; and when well cooked, crush the vegetables and break up the meat.

Assuming that there is enough food here for two suppers, on the second day boil up one or two cabbages until they are soft, a pinch of carbonate of soda being added to the water, mince well and add them to the food left over the previous day.

Cabbages when given in considerable quantity as in this instance should be boiled alone, not with the meat, for they make broth insipid.

It now being necessary to cook again, this time it will be well to obtain fresh fish instead of meat, and use vegetables in cooking as before. But as fish changes quickly and soon becomes poisonous, only sufficient for one meal should be cooked.

On the fourth day again cook beef or mutton with vegetables. Put away enough of the soup for the next night, and to what is retained add bread, rice, oatmeal, Indian meal or the like.

The next day thicken the soup left over with crushed dog cakes. And these cakes with a generous quantity of milk will do for the sixth day's supper.

This diet-table will give a near idea how mature dogs should be fed at night - the time when they should be given their heartiest meal. Further variations will be easy; and the longer the list of foods the better.

The method of preparation advised favors convenience greatly and there can be no decided objection to it where the dogs are of large size, have vigorous digestive powers and are allowed a goodly amount of exercise. But the fact is apparent that a soup made in this way is richer and less digestible than the vegetables and meats would be were they cooked separately. Again, in soups which are thickened with starchy foods it is scarcely possible to keep the proportion of the various ingredients right.

Consequently when it is possible to do so it is best to cook the meat in one kettle, the vegetables in another, and the starches by themselves, and keep them separate until they are to be served. Then the correct proportions can be put into the feeding pan, the vegetables, bread, rice, Indian meal or other starches softened with the broth, and all well mixed together.

Another good way of preparing meat for dogs, and one that favors convenience greatly when no very great amount of this food is required, is as follows: Obtain, as needed, one or more glass jars of good size such as are used for preserving. Cut the meat fine. Put into each jar a quantity sufficient to make it about one-half full. Fill up with cold water and cover with saucers. Now stand these jars in small shallow pans containing a little water, place them in the oven of the kitchen stove and leave them there four or five hours or overnight if possible. And no matter how tough the meat, when cooked in this way it becomes tender; moreover, nearly all its virtues have been saved and the broth is appetizing as well as quite nutritious.

The morning meal scarcely requires any special preparation, and one or more dog cakes, according to the size of the dog, or a few dry, hard pieces of stale bread and a goodly quantity of new milk, skimmed milk or buttermilk will admirably meet all requirements.

It will naturally be assumed from this that the writer is in favor of the two-meals-a-day system. He believes that under many conditions for all dogs other than toys a light breakfast - largely of milk, because of its very decidedly good effect upon the coat - and a good supper is the regimen most conducive to health. It certainly in some degree discourages gluttony, for this disposition is as a rule far more pronounced in dogs that are fed but once in twenty-four hours. And these suffer more frequently from indigestion than others that are fed twice daily.

In the wild state the dog was a gluttonous animal, for his chances of a meal came only seldom, and to guard against starvation he was forced to overload his stomach; but now if he is rightly fed this disposition is never exhibited in great intensity; and the less intense it is the better his health.

But while, as a rule, it is advisable that two meals each day be allowed, under some conditions the number can properly be limited to one and food be given at night only. And on the whole this custom seems best for sporting dogs while in the field, for were they fed mornings and soon afterward started to work, during their hard runs digestion would go on slowly if indeed it did not stop altogether, and the food in the stomach, decomposing and acrid in consequence of being too long retained, would cause gastric and intestinal irritation and diarrhoea. Consequently one meal a day - a hearty one - after their work has been done should be the rule with them.

But in this matter, as in all that pertains to the care of the dog, there must be judgment displayed, and the same based on a thorough knowledge of individual peculiarities, habits, etc. For instance, greyhounds are light feeders and one meal a day is quite enough for the majority of them. And yet there would be no good reason for denying members of this family a snack in the morning had they been habituated to it and seemed the better for it.

Again, assuming that a bitch has been accustomed to one feeding a day and is in-pup, manifestly two meals will be required during the early weeks of gestation, also a light luncheon as the end is rapidly approaching.