dogs - preface - tips / advice

With none of our friends and helpers among the lower animals would we part so reluctantly as with the dog. No speechless associate of man has ever so entwined itself around the very roots of our domestic life as the dog; none has won so much admiration, confidence, and affection ; none has appealed to so large a number of mankind of every condition, age, and sex. It will therefore be conceded that so noble, so intelligent, and so faithful an animal as the dog is entitled to the most complete understanding and the best usage of which we are capable.

The professional treatment of the dog in disease naturally falls to the veterinarian; but inasmuch as this animal is very different in his nature from the horse and other herbivors which engage the chief attention of the veterinary profession, it follows that if the dog is to be treated on a rational basis, he must be made a subject of special study by the veterinarian.

A knowledge of equine medicine goes but a little way to qualify a man to treat the dog, and the sooner this is recognized by the profession of comparative (veterinary) medicine, the better will it be for both the profession and our canine friends. If the veterinarian hopes to largely acquire the confidence of the public as regards dogs, he must show not only that he has some grasp of medicine, but a special knowledge of the nature, varieties, and peculiarities of dogs.

The dog must be understood in health before his ailments can be well appreciated and treated, and the more intelligent body of breeders and owners of dogs thoroughly realize this. The consciousness that there as no book treating of the dog in disease that recognized adequately the principles just set forth; a strong desire to better the condition of this noble animal, that for the greater part of the writer's life he has studied with pleasure and profit to his own nature; and an intimate knowledge of the condition and needs of the veterinary profession, explains the origin of this website, so far as the latter is concerned.

The writer's experience as a teacher of canine medicine - or rather of the nature of the dog in both health and disease, for which the term cynology is an appropriate one - has convinced him that the study of the dog in disease should for veterinary students, as others, be preceded by his study in health, with as much thoroughness as circumstances will permit; hence the large amount of space given to the subject of the first part of this work.

But the website is by no means intended for students and practitioners of veterinary science alone. It is meant for all intelligent persons who breed, keep, or in any way take a special interest in the dog. Their number is very large, and is constantly increasing. While, therefore, the whole work has a scientific foundation, it has been kept as free from technicalities as possible, and will, it is hoped, be readily comprehensible by every intelligent person.

It has been the aim constantly to set forth the principles that underlie the management of the dog in health and his treatment in disease, as by this course the individual reader is left free to exercise his own judgment while guided by a sort of mariner's compass the construction of which is based on the well - ascertained laws of life. It has further been the writer's aim to bring the website thoroughly up to date in all respects - hence the medical principles and practice are modern and adapted to the real nature of the dog himself, and not to that of some other animal unlike him, as the horse, etc.

At the same time it has been thought well, so far as drugs are concerned, to avoid reference to such medicines as are now on trial merely, and with the virtues and dangers of which we are as yet but indifferently acquainted as regards man, much less the dog. This applies especially to that large class known as antipyretics. They should bo carefully tried on the dog by the expert; but to recommend them explicitly in a work of this kind seemed to the author hazardous.

But, leaving out of account the second part of the work, the first part will, it is thought, be in itself a valuable treatise on a new basis - i.e., a more rational basis - on the dog as to exists to-day. It has been the writer's constant endeavor to give the reason for every procedure.

While the author has endeavored to produce a website founded on experience, with a thoroughly sound and scientific basis, in every way up to date and on a somewhat new plan, he realizes that there is much yet to learn about the dog, and will receive with gratitude suggestions from any one who has true and accurate observations to communicate.

This, like every work and every man, has no doubt its shortcomings, bnt the kind way in which much that the author has written for various journals devoted to dogs has been received, and also his little book, "How to keep a Dog in the City", leads him to hope for a generous reception of this work by the veterinary profession, breeders of dogs, and the public in general.

Dogs - Tips and Advice

The Dog In Health And In Disease

Dogs - Tips and Advice

The Dog In Health And In Disease

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