It is therefore essential to select a dog and bitch of a large strain to obtain large Mastiffs.

Dogs usually vary from 25 inches to 27 inches and bitches from 23 inches to 25 inches; but in either case the greater height is to be preferred, provided that character and quality are also combined.

Tame dogs living in countries inhabited by the jackal often betray the jackal strain in their litters, and there are instances of men dwelling in lonely outposts of civilisation being molested by wolves or jackals following upon the trail of a bitch in season.

They also pretended to draw a good or bad omen from the most trifling actions or occurrences of life, as sneezing, stumbling, starting, numbness of the little finger, the tingling of the ear, the spilling of salt upon the table, or the wine upon one's clothes, the accidental meeting of a bitch with whelp, etc.

Mr. Larke's Princess Thor had a litter of seventeen, but even eight is too great a number for a bitch to suckle in a breed where great size is a desideratum.

Today, when the blood clamored, youths could not bring themselves to go through the formality of entering, ending, paying and leaving; in their eyes, this was bestiality, the action of a dog attacking a bitch without much ado.

He got some good stock, but they were not generally show form, the bitches by him being mostly light and small, and his sons a bit high on the leg.

Dogs kept in the near neighbourhood of a bitch on heat, who is not accessible to them, go off their feed and suffer in condition.

Mastiffs kept under such conditions are far more likely to prove successful stud dogs and brood bitches than those to which deleterious drugs are constantly being given.

"In the matter of breeding it is the practice to line the bitch at the beginning of spring, for then she is said to be in heat, that is to say, to show a readiness for breeding.