'I have received from Messrs. Spratt's Patent Ltd. (the well-known firm who first placed dog cakes on the market) a sample bag of a new biscuit food, with an explanatory letter from the firm's sales manager as follows:

"I have frequently seen in your 'Notes' references to the advantages of brown bread as against ordinary biscuit food for dogs. I am sending you a small bag of our "Speedall" as at present manufactured... Prepared originally as a diet for racing Greyhounds, it consists of wholemeal with which is blended a small proportion of cod liver oil. Our claim for the food is that it contains all the elements essential to health and energy except meat, which many owners prefer to purchase themselves. It contains the necessary minerals.

"The great advantage of our new baking system is that the food is so light and porous that it soaks perfectly uniformly and will absorb the juices of raw meat or milk, soup or gravy, as well as water; also it is tasty and acceptable and free from lumps - no crust or crumb."

I am always - for very obvious reasons - chary of recommending any article, be it of food or medicine, in preference to other articles made by competitive manufacturers, but here is something quite new. The old dog biscuit made from white flour and granulated meat in my view lacked several of the essentials to be seen in this new product. I have examined it microscopically (people who send me what purports to be "wholemeal" food should note this), and it is the genuine article. The advantages of whole wheatmeals as an addition to meat - the dog's natural food - are now everywhere recognised, and this particular product bears out fully the claims made for it.

My special "pal," a big, strong Wire-haired terrier, upon which I can always rely (he has suffered many experiments) entirely approves of it. My method with this type of food is to give it dry. The less soft food a dog gets the better his digestive powers are maintained, and the convenient lumps into which this new biscuit is broken up can be swallowed as they are. None the less, for pet and delicate dogs, its "soaking" properties are all that is claimed for them.'