Part 14
Occasionally puppies are born with the opening in the prepuce so large that the penis is always protruding.
_Treatment_: The opening may be partly closed by scarifying the edges of the skin, and then sewing it up. Care must be taken that the dog does not lick the part during the healing.
=Prostate Gland, Enlargement of=:
_Symptoms_: Difficulty in passing water—straining; also difficulty in passing a motion—constipation. When very large, they may be felt by manipulation of back part of abdomen (the pubic region) just in front of the thighs.
_Treatment_: If dog unable to urinate properly, the water must be drawn off with a small-sized catheter. The bowels must be kept in a semi-relaxed condition by mixing with the food, twice a day, from half to a dessertspoonful[1] of salad oil. Also, give twice a day, from a quarter[1] to two grains of iodide of potassium in a little water. The extract of prostate gland may be tried—dose, from half a grain to two grains.[1] An operation for enlarged prostate gland in the dog is not satisfactory, but castrating a dog suffering from this disease often has a good effect.
=Prostatitis (Inflammation of Prostate Gland)=:
_Symptoms_: Increased frequency of passing water, and straining after emptying bladder, when a few drops of blood are often passed. Big dogs are more subject to the disease than small ones.
_Treatment_: Do not take the dog for long walks; feed principally on milk, with biscuits, bread, toast, rice, etc. Fish may also be given, but avoid meat. Give aperient medicine, castor oil is the best, also tonic medicine, as the following pills:—
_Recipe_:
Powdered Nux Vomica, 1 to 6 grains.[1] Reduced Iron, 12 to 30 grains. Extract Gentian, _q.s._
Mix.
Divide into 12 pills—one to be given twice a day after food.
=Pruritus Ani (Inflammation of Skin about Anus)=:
_Symptoms_: The skin around anus is red and inflamed, and very irritable; the dog draws himself along the ground on the back parts, and is also frequently trying to lick himself.
This condition is often associated with a swollen and congested state of the anal glands.
_Treatment_: Try the ointment recommended for external piles, or bathe parts with following lotion—
_Recipe_:
Carbolic Acid, 1 drachm. Glycerine, 2 drachms. Water to 8 ounces.
Mix.
If the anal glands are distended, empty by squeezing. (_See_ article on ANAL GLANDS.)
In medicine, give from two[1] to fifteen grains of milk of sulphur twice a day.
In feeding, avoid much meat.
=Psoriasis=:
_Symptoms_: A dry and scaly condition of the skin, with small red spots here and there, particularly when the elbows, knees, and hocks are affected, which are the parts more often attacked.
_Treatment_: When the disease is spread more or less all over the dog, a dressing made of cocoanut oil six parts, and glycerine one part, well mixed together and applied all over the dog, and repeated once in four days, is beneficial. The dressing should be washed off after a week, using sulphur soap, and then the dog should have two or three times a week, for a time, a sulphur bath made by dissolving one ounce of sulphurated potash in a pail of tepid water.
When the disease affects only the joints, apply the following dressing twice a day:—
_Recipe_:
Methylated Spirits, } Of each one ounce. Green Soft Soap, } Oil of Cade, }
Mix.
Give the dog worm medicine, also a course of arsenic, from one[1] to six drops of liquor arsenicalis P. B. in water twice a day after food. The dose may be doubled a week later. This medicine should be continued for about a fortnight, but should it cause vomiting, diarrhœa, or loss of appetite, it is at once to be discontinued.
=Puerperal Fever=:
_Symptoms_: It may occur three or four days after pupping—commences with an attack of shivering—the temperature rises probably to 105, the pulse is quiet and weak. There is great thirst and vomiting, and perhaps diarrhœa. The discharge from vagina ceases, and the secretion of milk stops. The abdomen is distended and painful.
_Treatment_: Give a large dose of salicylate of quinine, from two[1] to ten grains made into a pill, or put in a cachet. Apply hot linseed-meal poultices to abdomen. Well wash the womb out with a solution of perchloride of mercury, 1 in 2,000—that is, one grain to about every four ounces of warm water. Of this solution use about two ounces for a small bitch, and half a pint for a large one. About two minutes after injecting the solution of mercury, wash the womb well out with plain warm water, using from four[1] ounces to a pint. The syringing may be repeated in twelve hours. When the mercury is not at hand, a saturated solution of boracic acid may be used, or one of permanganate of potash, one grain to each ounce of water.
To wash the womb out properly, a clean Higson’s enema syringe should be used, and the long insertion tube well vaselined passed up the passage as far as it will go.
_Diet_: Should be light, as milk with Vichy water to drink, also Brand’s beef essence, or Valentine’s meat juice, given with Vichy water.
If the vomiting is very troublesome, give the mixture recommended for gastritis, and keep up the bitch’s strength with nutritive enemas and peptonised meat suppositories.
=Pulse=:
A dog’s pulse varies in the number of beats per minute, according to his size. The number is less in a big dog than a small one. A St. Bernard’s pulse, for instance, beats about 70 times per minute, and a small dog’s, say, like a toy terrier, 100 times per minute, and a dog’s pulse is often intermittent in its beat.
In disease, the pulse, in most cases, is increased in frequency. It might be for big dogs 100 to 120, and for small dogs from 120 to 150 or 160 times a minute.
In some instances, as in some cases of heart disease, or in pneumonia, when the heart is affected, the pulse is very slow indeed. A big dog may go down to 50, and a small dog to 70. A very slow pulse is more serious than a fast one. In such cases, some such mixture as the following should be given:—
_Recipe_:
Tincture Digitalis, 2 drachms. Tincture Nux Vomica, 1 drachm. Simple Syrup, 1 ounce. Water to 6 ounces.
_Doses_: From one teaspoonful to a tablespoonful[1] every four or six hours.
The pulse not only varies in number of beats per minute during illness, but also in character—for instance, after great exertion the pulse is full and fast, and in cases of internal inflammation it is small and wiry as well as fast.
In some diseases of the nervous system the pulse is very slow. During a prolonged illness, or after a severe illness, the pulse can scarcely be felt; it is then said to be weak, and stimulants and tonics are indicated.
The pulse is always quicker in young dogs and old ones than it is in those in the prime of life. The best place for taking the heart-beats or pulse is at the femoral artery, just as it crosses the inside of the thigh-bone.
=Pupping=:
To discover whether a bitch is in pup, let her be placed upon a table, and her fears or excitability banished by caresses; then lay her upon her side, and with the fingers gently manipulate the abdomen. If the womb is impregnated, the person, directing his attention first to the situation the uterus occupies, near to the rim of the pelvis, and inferior to the rectum, will there detect round smooth bodies, like little eggs. These may not be perceptible if the bladder be loaded; but if the catheter be employed to draw off the urine, they will surely be felt. If the rectum be full of faeces, it serves as an admirable guide to the position of the uterus, though he who is acquainted with anatomy needs no such assistance. Some globular substance being detected, the fingers are advanced; and if more than one pup be conceived, another similar to it will speedily impinge upon the touch; then another, and so on, until the whole of the promised family have been thus announced. The last is the most difficult to discover; for should there be more than two or three, it may, and will generally, occupy the extremity of a horn, and in that situation may escape observation. There are to the womb of this animal a pair of horns, which are long, and extend to the region of the kidneys. Both cannot be traced at the same time, and there is a chance of the two being confounded; therefore it is not well to be positive as to the precise number of young the bitch will bring forth. And I never presume to speak confidently upon the point; for though, in the majority of cases, my opinion may have been corroborated, nevertheless I have often known a pup more than I supposed the uterus contained to have been delivered. From the end of the fourth week, the litter, as it were, go away, or are lost; but when the sixth week arrives, the contents of the abdomen may be plainly detected; and if the bitch be taken upon the lap, and her belly supported with the hand, they at this period will be felt to move, and the motion even of their limbs is clearly recognised.
Milk appears in the teats about the middle of the eighth week, and sometimes sooner, and occasionally later.
For a bitch to be in proper condition at the time of parturition, she requires some attention during pregnancy. One or two hours’ walking exercise daily is essential during the early part of the time; but when the bitch becomes very heavy, as is often the case the last fortnight, then half an hour slowly walking is enough, unless the bitch is inclined to take more. During the first five weeks it is not necessary to make any alteration in the diet. If the bitch is in the habit of being fed only once a day, so let it continue; but after the time mentioned, food should be given twice a day, and should be of good nourishing kind, as soaked biscuits with a little under-cooked meat—three parts of the former to one of the latter. When she is delicate, and has a poor appetite, extra meat may be allowed; and in some cases, especially towards the last, if she is disinclined to take her ordinary food, meat, raw or cooked, alone may be given two or three times a day.
Spratt’s small special cod-liver oil biscuits, which contain 10 per cent. of the oil, make first-class food for bitches of poor condition. They may be given dry, also broken up small, soaked in soup, and mixed with meat in the proportion as previously stated. The principal thing is to feed regularly, and not to give too much at a time.
Bitches when in pup are best without a lot of medicine; but I consider it a good plan, about three weeks after service, and when all signs of heat have quite disappeared, to give a vermifuge, not with the idea of preventing the puppies becoming infested with worms, as that is impossible, before birth; but no bitch can be in good health, which is so essential at this time, if the bowels are full of worms. I do not advise a strong drastic dose, but one of medium strength, and it should be repeated the following week. It is very important to examine the bitch’s skin from time to time, so as to check any cutaneous disorder early; for if the bitch has any skin disease when the puppies are born, they are sure to contract it, and nothing thwarts their growth more than an irritable skin, for it prevents rest, when plenty of sleep is so essential for a puppy’s welfare; so if there are symptoms of mange, have her at once dressed all over with some mild preparation like sulphur ointment made with vaseline, which should be repeated two or three times in the course of a week, and after a few days washed off. In case of eczema, a bath in Pearson’s fluid diluted eighty times with water, or after the seventh week sponging all over with a solution of the same, will in most cases be all that is necessary. In some cases of eczema, at these times a little cooling medicine is useful, as an occasional dose of syrup of buckthorn and castor oil, or a small dose every day for a week of some alterative powders, as the following:
Cream of Tartar, } Equal parts. Powdered Magnesia, } Bicarbonate of Potash, } Milk of Sulphur, }
_Dose_: From sufficient to cover a sixpence to a dessertspoonful.[1]
If a bitch has been in the habit of being regularly washed, this may be continued as usual, when the heat has passed, until about the seventh week, when it is not advisable to put the bitch right into warm water in case abortion might be induced.
While on the subject of abortion, I may mention that a bitch ought never to be sent on a journey by train during the last two weeks, for a shaking of this kind is more likely to cause premature confinement than anything else I know.
It is very important that the bitch should be quite clean at the time of parturition, and it is a good plan to wash the stomach and breast, also the vulva and surrounding parts, with a strong warm solution of Pearson’s fluid, about one in forty. Some treatment of this kind is more likely to prevent young puppies from having worms soon after birth than anything else. It is a common custom, and I think a very good one, to give a bitch in pup a dose of castor oil about three days before she is due. In many cases, especially when the bitch is a bit gross, it is advisable to give a dose of the oil a week before her time is up, and again in three or four days.
Bitches, as a rule, have their puppies on the sixty-second or sixty-third day, the day of service being included; but some will pup on the sixtieth day, or even a day or so earlier, and the puppies may be fairly strong; but when born before the fifty-seventh day they seldom live. On the other hand, many, especially those of the larger breeds, will go two or three days over the specified time without inconvenience; and I have known one to go as long as seventy-three days, and then to have a litter of strong, healthy puppies, but this does not often occur when there is a large litter.
One who is accustomed to dogs can tell within a few hours when a bitch is going to pup. There is disinclination for food, the vulva is swollen, and there is a discharge of thick mucus from the vagina, and, as a rule, she seeks a quiet spot to be alone.
At this time, after making the bitch comfortable with a nice clean straw bed—there is nothing better than straw, which should not be supplied too plentifully—she should be left by herself for a time. As the labour pains come on, she becomes restless, and pants; is frequently looking around, and licking herself. When such occurs, labour in earnest may be considered to have commenced; and if all is going well, one or more puppies should be born in the course of an hour or so. If after two hours there are no signs of a puppy appearing, it is well to examine the bitch; but if a bladder (fœtal membrane) is protruding from the vagina, there is no hurry to interfere, as this is a sign, as a rule, that matters are taking a normal course, and that more time is required; and the bitch, after being offered some milk, may be left again for another hour or two. Bitches at their first pupping should always be given more time than one which has had two or three litters, and this is more especially the case when she is three or four years old, or even older. I have known bitches when over nine years of age to have a litter of puppies for the first time, and, as may be expected, it often goes very hard with them, though with care they may live through it. Once the membrane protrudes, which the bitch generally ruptures by biting, the first puppy, if everything is all right, soon makes its appearance; and, as a rule, by the time the cord is divided, and she has attended to the young arrival’s toilet, another youngster is nearly born, and in the course of an hour the bitch may have given birth to three or four puppies; then, perhaps, if there are any more, there is an interval of two or three hours, which gives the bitch time to recover her strength, and take some refreshment in the way of thin oatmeal gruel or plain milk, and in most cases this is quite sufficient; but if there are signs of exhaustion, some Brand’s essence, or the white of an egg beaten up with milk, and a small quantity of brandy, may be given. After this, in cases of the smaller breeds, when the average number is four or five, the last of the puppies soon makes its appearance; this also refers to terriers, though they may have five or six, or even more puppies, as they are such strong dogs compared to toy spaniels, pugs, etc.
Very often a bitch will have all her puppies but one with the greatest ease (for it is seldom a bitch cries out whilst pupping after the first litter), when the pains seem to cease altogether, and do not return for many hours afterwards, perhaps not until the next day. In such cases, a dose of some medicine to excite the action of the uterus is necessary, but this will be dealt with later on.
Bitches of the larger breeds which have big litters of twelve, fourteen, sixteen, and more puppies, invariably take all day, even in normal cases; but after twelve some assistance and great care are required, for by this time the mother is getting exhausted. Good gruel should be offered, and about every three hours the white of an egg beaten up with a teacupful of milk and a dessertspoonful of brandy should be given.
Bitches that have had their puppies easily do not require much food during the next twenty-four hours, the fœtal envelopes, which are always eaten, affording a certain amount of nourishment; therefore, if some thin oatmeal gruel or Benger’s food made with milk be offered, it is sufficient. Plain milk may also be given to drink. The same diet does for the following two days, with the addition of some soup or sheep’s-head broth with bread or crushed dog biscuits, a small quantity twice a day. After the third day a more liberal diet may be allowed; boiled fish, as fresh haddock, with bread, also the meat from a sheep’s head, and bread or broken biscuit soaked soft in the soup. By degrees the quantity and quality of the food may be increased, for after a fortnight, when there is a large litter, a good deal of nourishment is required, if the bitch is to be kept strong and the puppies fat.
Very often, two or three days after parturition, the bitch has diarrhœa. As a rule, it is not severe, and passes off in the course of twenty-four hours. Should it continue after this time, a dose of castor oil and laudanum may be given. In small bitches, as toys, a teaspoonful of the oil with three drops of laudanum; for terriers, a dessertspoonful of the former and five drops of the latter; collies, etc., a tablespoonful, and ten drops of tincture of opium; and large bitches, two tablespoonfuls and ten drops. The dose should be repeated in six hours. If the diarrhœa continues after the oil has worked off, from five[1] to twenty grains of bismuth may be given three or four times a day, shaken dry on the tongue. During the diarrhœa, the milk should be thickened with arrowroot, and the soup be given with rice instead of bread or biscuit.
Some bitches, when due to pup, and though in good health and fairly strong, have not sufficient labour pains to bring forth their young; the water-bag may break and there is the usual green-coloured discharge, but the throes are so slight as to be of little use. Of course, once the fœtal membrane is broken, and the fluid escapes, the puppy soon dies if not born; therefore, it is necessary to use means to stimulate the contraction of the womb—in other words, to induce labour pains—and for this there is nothing better than ergotine, which is a strong extract of ergot of rye. Until recently the latter was used, the seed being coarsely powdered, and from ten[1] to sixty grains administered in warm milk or coffee, the dose being repeated every two or three hours until several had been given. There are other preparations of ergot, as the ammoniated liquid extract, and ammoniated tincture. The former is the next best preparation to ergotine, and should be used when ergotine cannot be obtained. The dose varies from ten minims to one drachm,[1] which may be given with water, or in a little milk, and repeated every two hours until the pains have been induced, or six doses given; but these preparations are not so good as ergotine, for not only does the latter act with more certainty, but there is another advantage in its administration, and that is, it may be injected under the skin, and consequently the stomach is not irritated and perhaps the bitch made sick, which often happens when these medicines are given by the mouth. The dose of ergotine is from one[1] to three grains, given in from ten[1] to forty minims of brandy. There is no advantage, as is often recommended, in injecting it deeply into the muscles in the region of the pelvis, as it is quite sufficient to introduce it just under the skin. I generally do so behind one of the shoulders on the side of the chest, where the skin is loose. The action of the drug, when given in this way, may generally be observed within a quarter of an hour, and the dose, if necessary, may be repeated in a couple of hours.
It is not an uncommon occurrence, as before observed, in cases of parturition, for bitches that have large litters, to give birth to all the puppies quickly, and with a certain amount of ease, until the last, and in some instances two puppies. Then the pain seems to cease, and the bitch appears fairly comfortable for some hours, and it is often thought by the attendant she has finished, and there is no further cause for anxiety; but in about twelve hours, or perhaps the next day, the bitch becomes restless again, refuses her food, and is inclined to neglect her pups, and is constantly wanting to go out, and after passing water, sits and strains for a few moments. When these symptoms are noticed, the bitch should be immediately examined, and if it is found there are more puppies, and that the foremost one is not unnaturally situated, a dose of ergotine should be at once given, and some nourishment also administered, as milk and brandy, or Brand’s beef essence, or even a little scraped lean raw meat.
Breeders should make it a regular practice to examine a bitch when it is thought she has finished pupping, by gently manipulating the abdomen, also by passing carefully a well-oiled finger into the vagina, for it is often impossible to tell for certain, without examination, if there is only one left, more especially in cases when the mother has had a large litter. Many a valuable bitch is lost through this not being regularly done. Because the pups, when left behind, if not already dead, die, and quickly decompose and set up blood-poisoning, which invariably terminates fatally within twenty-four hours.