The very best instrument for getting out bad mats in a dog's coat is a lady's hat pin. A comb is useless for the tangles which have become wadded slabs of hair, as is often the case when the dogs are shedding their coats very fast. Take hold of the tangle with the fore finger and thumb of the left hand as close to the skin as possible and hold it tight so that the hair cannot slip through it. Then insert the point of the hat pin at the edges of the tangle and comb with it, gradually working down to the roots. Do not plunge the pin close to the roots at the start and try to pull it forcibly through the whole length of the tangle, as this is very cruel and most disastrous to the hair. Never pull at a tangle without holding it with your left hand between the pin and the root to take the tension off the skin or you will disgust the dog and spoil his temper. If your dog squeaks when you are combing him it is a sure sign that you are a bad hair-dresser. Also when you are brushing a Toy Spaniel be very careful not to put the bristles of the brush into his eyes.

This may Sound unnecessary advice, but dogs are so sudden in the way they turn their heads and the eyes of Toy Spaniels are so large that I have seen it happen more than once.

Champion Windfall has been taught to "smile'* which is one of the prettiest tricks I have ever seen. He coquets with his head on one side and draws his muzzle right up with delightful little pincushions bristling with whiskers and then darts forward and kisses his master's face or hands. He does not lick but just touches with his muzzle.

You can teach Toy Spaniels to prance by holding them away from you short on the lead with the left hand, and then exciting them to jump up towards your right hand by drawing it sharply upwards under the the breast and chin and stepping quickly backwards so that the dog runs and jumps after you. When you have taught one of your dogs to do this he will help you teach the others, who will imitate him with great zest and enjoyment. Champion Windfall has taught all my house dogs, one after the other.

If the weather is too stormy to exercise your dogs during the winter months, it sometimes seems a choice between pneumonia from getting drenched, or fatty degeneration of the heart from excess of sleep. To avoid the latter you can exercise your dogs in the house by teaching them to play hide-and-seek with a ball or a bit of biscuit. Show them the ball and get someone to prevent their seeing where you hide it, then spread your hands out empty and say: "Hi lost I" or, " Fetch it !" If you begin in easy places and, as they get more expert at finding it, gradually increase the difficulty, it is astonishing how clever the dogs will become, and you will eventually have to rack your brains to find any place difficult enough to delay their finding it

A healthy puppy is the most outrageously boisterous hooligan in the way of dogs that it is possible to imagine. Wee Dot keeps the household in a constant state of alarm by climbing into impossible places, hurling herself from the backs of chairs, upsetting lamps and coal scuttles and swallowing, or attempting to swallow, everything she can see, from hearth-brushes and cinders to the fender itself, and I am sure that given time and opportunity, she would consume the drawing-room carpet bodily. Windfairy and Bunthorne chase each other round the house, dash down the passages and all round the room like a rushing wind and are gone again, generally with a crash of broken glass, before one has time to collect one's scattered wits.

The healthier the puppy, the more unmanageable he will be at home and the better he will be in the show ring when he grows up. A dog like this fearing, as the saying is, neither "God, man nor devil," will be a credit to his owner. The din of the shows will only rouse his fighting spirit, and he will walk into the ring in the defiant and vainglorious state of mind that goes far to catch a judge's eye.

Ben and Bunthorne also have uproarious games, though Ben is now eleven years old, but it generally ends in a free fight owing to some undue roughness on Bunthorne's part which offends Ben's dignity. Ben hates Windfall, evidently considering him a swaggering upstart, and Windfall irritates him by completely ignoring his presence, though this is made sufficiently obvious by thundering growls. The failure to impress Windfall with a sense of danger is Ben's chief grievance in life. Ben and Bunthorne are fond of rabbiting, and enjoy causing the whole household to shout itself hoarse over half the county. At midnight they reappear in such a condition of dirt and disreputability that they look more like corded poodles than anything else. Ben usually has a sort of rhinoceros horn of clay on the end of his nose from burrowing in rabbit holes and Bun-thorne's tail is adorned with yards of brambles. In spite of their hunting propensities one never hunts without the other and they never touch tame rabbits. Ben steadily refuses to look at these and always pretends not to see them. If thrust under his nose he turns away his head and growls. Windfall once had a fight with the biggest rabbit about his dinner which he mistakenly imagined that the rabbit was going to claim.

He gave it a box on the side of the head with his paw, and the rabbit scratched him and plainly asserted that it was a vegetarian.

Dogs should be severely reprimanded for jumping up ana looking out or windows as, if they see sumething exciting, they will often make a sudden leap into space. I knew a lady who used to allow her Blenheim to sit on the outside ledge of the top story of her London house. One of our Spaniels once deliberately jumped out of the first floor window of Crabbet House, a height of twenty-six feet. She did not kill herself, but the shock affected her eyes, giving her a decided squint. She weighed about twelve pounds. Had she been a valuable show specimen she would probably not have survived.

I have given in this book a sketch of a kitten and two puppies lying together on a cushion (seen from bird's-eye point of view). These puppies bully the kitten which is devoted to them and goes about with a puppy almost permanently attached to his tail or ear and sleeps with his paws round the puppies' necks. When he gets tired of being bullied he rushes up a curtain or bounds onto a chest of drawers via the back of a chair, which performance always astonishes and outrages the puppies, which cannot understand why they should not be able to get up the curtain, too. They scurry round with shrieks of disapproval while the kitten sits purring down on them with an unmistakable smile of superiority. Sometimes the puppies fairly get hold of him three or four at a time and then there are frenzied mews for help, but he never by any chance scratches in self-defence.

Be just to your dog. Do not punish him for what is your own fault. For instance, if you forget to let him out of doors often enough, do not scold him if he misbehaves in the house. If you are teaching him anything and he seems intractable, try and find out why this is.

Once a dog which I had taught to dance on his hind legs took to dropping on all fours and refused even to try the trick. I got very cross with him and he was in disgrace for some time. Then I found that he had rheumatism in his back which prevented his walking on two legs, though he was all right on four, and I was obliged to " apologise in seven positions,' I think there is nothing so distressing to a dog owner as to have punished the wrong dog. If you are not sure of the criminal's identity, punish no one but talk to the dogs generally. Point out the misdemeanour and declaim about it in general terms. They will understand quite well.

In conclusion, I recommend Blenheim Spaniels as the most perfect of all pets, but whatever variety of Toy dog may be chosen, I insist that the individual shall be a pretty one, and I wish that all owners may derive as much pleasure from their dogs as I have done from mine.