The early spring is the best season for breeding, as it gives the puppies a start of at least six months in which to grow and get strong before the cold weather sets in, although, of course, they can be bred at any time, but autumn and winter puppies are more troublesome to rear.  It is always wise to administer occasionally, both to puppies and adults, a dose of worm medicine, so as to give no chance to internal parasites—­the most troublesome ill with which the dog owner has to wrestle, causing even more mortality than the dreaded scourge of distemper.

The rules of hygiene cannot be overlooked, as upon them hangs the success of the breeder; plenty of fresh air, light, and sunshine are as necessary as food.  Puppies of this breed are essentially delicate, and must be kept free from cold and draughts, but they require liberty and freedom to develop and strengthen their limbs, otherwise they are liable to develop rickets.  Their food should be of the best quality, and after the age of six months, nothing seems more suitable than stale brown bred, cut up dice size, and moistened with good stock gravy, together with minced, lean, underdone roast beef, with the addition, two or three times a week, of a little well-cooked green vegetable, varied with rice or suet pudding and plain biscuits.  Fish may also be given occasionally.

When only two or three dogs are kept, table scraps will generally be sufficient, but the pernicious habit of feeding at all times, and giving sweets, pastry, and rich dainties, is most harmful, and must produce disastrous results to the unfortunate animal.  Two meals a day at regular intervals are quite sufficient to keep these little pets in the best condition, although puppies should be fed four times daily in small quantities.  After leaving the mother they will thrive better if put on dry food, and a small portion of scraped or finely minced lean meat given them every other day, alternately with a chopped hard-boiled egg and stale bread-crumbs.

CHAPTER XLV

THE PEKINESE AND THE JAPANESE

Few of the many breeds of foreign dogs now established in England have attained such a measure of popularity in so short a time as the Pekinese.  Of their early history little is known, beyond the fact that at the looting of the Summer Palace of Pekin, in 1860, bronze effigies of these dogs, known to be more than two thousand years old, were found within the sacred precincts.  The dogs were, and are to this day, jealously guarded under the supervision of the Chief Eunuch of the Court, and few have ever found their way into the outer world.