Equally as correct conclusions regarding the potency of these influences can be drawn from the experiences of men, for they act upon them as on dogs. Sailors, for instance, on fairly long voyages are forced to subsist largely on beef and pork which are submitted to methods of curing that render them so indigestible the nutritive properties retained are in such form that a goodly proportion can be extracted only with exceeding difficulty. These meats, with biscuits - very often "weevilly" and canned goods for only rare change, make up the most of their bill of fare. Yet where can be found a healthier, hardier class than this - and all due to the pure air they are in and the hard work they are required to perform. But put these same men on shore in close-built cities or towns, let them live indolently and on the same kinds of food they had on shipboard, and they must soon decline in health and vigor.

On this subject man is singularly inclined to jump at conclusions. One calls attention to the fact that he is of a family of giants and that neither he nor any other member of it had scarcely any meat during childhood. He sees the city youngsters of to-day fed on mixed diet containing a large proportion of meat, and from this he reasons that their undergrowth and washed-out appearance are due to the meat. Yet he fails to realize that in his early years he doubtless consumed in the form of milk and eggs nearly if not quite as much animal food as they, and that in consequence of their peculiar situation in life these foods in fresh and pure state, and in abundance, are generally denied them, and meat is therefore substituted. He forgets, also, that he lived under very different hygienic conditions from theirs - he in the open country and in pure air, while they are in cities, which are rightly called the "graveyards of the human race;" moreover, that from his mother or his father there came to him a sturdy inheritance, while to the youngsters he looks down upon were more than likely bequeathed infirmities which had been in their families for several generations.

Men have theorized over their own diet for scores of years yet they are no nearer agreement now than they were in the beginning. One calls attention to the fact that Scotch Highlanders, the Irish, the peasantry of Italy, Spain, and Portugal, Chinamen, and other races thrive on oatmeal, potatoes, corn, chestnuts, olives, rice or lentils, with little or no meat, and that in Scotland a mountaineer will walk thirty or forty miles a day on oatmeal cakes or porridge with a little barley broth and a modicum of milk or butter, while an Indian palanquin-bearer will carry his burden twenty-five or thirty miles a day with only two meals of unleavened cakes and a little ghee.

Another points to the Eskimos, to the fishing population of Norway, and to the Pecherais of the southern end of South America, who subsist most of the time wholly on animal food; also to the fact that for months the hunters of the West have little or no food but the flesh of the animals they kill.

What do these facts prove? Merely that man can live on vegetable or on animal foods. There is nothing conclusive in all this. Neither the flesh-eaters nor the vegetable-eaters as a whole are superior races; and it is a significant fact that when the East Indian rebellion against the English occurred not many years ago some of the hardest fighters among the Hindus were the sepoys who had been accustomed by the English to a mixed diet.

All this in relation to man's diet, while seemingly foreign, has a bearing on the diet of dogs, for he is singularly-inclined to consider that their requirements are much the same as his own. But such reasoning is not always sound, for the dog is of a different order of animals and of different structure, and although he has accommodated himself to other than his natural diet there must be limits to his powers in this direction. Nor does it follow that if one man is right and his dog is doing well on some peculiar diet all others who feed differently are in the wrong.

There is an old saw, "What is one man's meat is another's poison." Nearly all mankind to whom they are accessible can safely eat strawberries, but still now and then is encountered a person on whom they bring out a most annoying rash. Nature's first food for every child is animal - milk - and yet there are not a few people who are made ill by it. The egg is certainly one of the most harmless of foods, nevertheless instances are on record where the merest trace of it has caused convulsions.

But ignoring these idiosyncrasies, which are fortunately but rarely encountered in man, while if they exist in dogs they can scarcely be any more common, two persons seldom meet who are fond of and can digest with equal ease the same kinds of foods, and such being the case individual peculiarities surely must occur occasionally among their humble companions so often fed from the table.

Another fact which has a bearing on the question under discussion is, that the immediate results of diet are by no means to be accepted as final. In other words, because a man or a dog apparently keeps healthy and strong for several years on nearly all meat or on nearly all vegetables, it does not follow that the chosen diet is a suitable one, for it might be doing harm and hidden changes be going on which must sooner or later result disastrously.

And now to the conclusions. Physicians and sanitarians after drawing from the accumulated experience of men under various circumstances have generally agreed that with healthy people living in the open country, not working very hard, and having an abundance of good wholesome vegetable foods, meat is not necessary; while on the other hand it is necessary where the air is not pure, the wear and tear on the nervous system is great, and the work is hard.

Practically the same conclusion must be reached with dogs after an intelligent study of them under various conditions. While their nature is such they must have some meat always, the quantity must be adjusted to the amount of work given them. And notwithstanding the potency of the force of habit which enables a dog to accommodate himself to quite decided changes from his natural diet, if he has been very active and accustomed to much meat from puppyhood up, and the quantity of this food is suddenly reduced and he is given a diet composed largely of vegetables, and allowed to continue to take as much exercise as usual, he will surely fall off in condition. Now apply the same radical treatment to another dog that has been accustomed to a vegetable diet and give him meat in large quantities but no more work, and evil results are as certain.

Obviously therefore although men differ widely on this matter, and one contends that a diet of meat is best for his dogs, while another stoutly maintains that his require this food only in very small quantities and that vegetables and starches are nearly sufficient for their support, it does not follow that one or both must be wrong.

Limiting the question to them, both may be right, for the dogs of one because of being worked hard may actually demand a diet largely of flesh, while the dogs of the other in consequence of being much confined may require but a small proportion of this food; and neither kennel would do well on the diet of the other. But for either of the owners of these dogs to assert that his is the only true theory, and that it should be accepted by all, and the entire canine race, no matter how placed, should be fed accordingly, is manifestly absurd.

Here again one is confronted with the theory that in all animals, including man, the stomach recognizes its own wants, but which, perhaps strangely, is not so generally accepted when applied to the quantity of food that is evidently required. If the appetite be ravenous the average caretaker is not likely to assume it to be trustworthy evidence and feed accordingly, but, as a rule, he jumps to the conclusion that it is an indication of perversion, therefore practically ignores it. Whereas it should be not only considered seriously, but often the appetite be satisfied, or at least the quantity of food allowed be much more generous, the fact being in mind always that with older pups or matured dogs it is very generally an indication of worms. If harboring them, certainly the victims must have the extra support which their appetite craves.