For breeding purposes choose winter, and release the bitches from hard
work;[1] which will enable them to profit by repose and to produce a
fine progeny towards spring, since that season is the best to promote
the growth of the young dogs. The bitch is in heat for fourteen
days,[2] and the moment at which to put her to the male, with a view
to rapid and successful impregnation, is when the heat is passing off.
Choose a good dog for the purpose. When the bitch is ready to whelp
she should not be taken out hunting continuously, but at intervals
sufficient to avoid a miscarriage through her over-love of toil. The
period of gestation lasts for sixty days. When littered the puppies
should be left to ther own dam, and not placed under another bitch;
foster-nursing does not promote growth in the same way, whilst nothing
is so good for them as their own mother's milk and her breath,[3] and
the tenderness of her caresses.[4]

[1] Or, "Winter is the time at which to pair dogs for breeding, the
bitches to be released from hard work, so that with the repose so
secured they may produce a fine litter in spring."

[2] Lit. "this necessity holds." Cf. Aristot. "H. A." vi. 20; Arrian,
xxvii., xxxi. 3.

[3] Cf. Eur. "Tro." 753, {o khrotos edu pneuma}.

[4] Cf. Arrian, xxx. 2; Pollux, v. 50; Columella, vii. 12, 12, ap.
Schneid.

Presently, when the puppies are strong enough to roam about, they
should be given milk[5] for a whole year, along with what will form
their staple diet in the future, but nothing else. A heavy diet will