If you have information on this, I’d appreciate a comment to this post.) Another view of the dog muzzle, mounted on a form used in the exhibition of “Pets in America.” “All I Did Was Growl a Little,” after Vincent Colby. (I’m still trying to figure out when rabies shots for dogs became routine. Enforcement of muzzling seems to have been especially stringent during summer months, when rabies was believed to be most common. As late as 1917, Philadelphia city ordinances allowed dogs to roam as long as they wore a “wire basket muzzle” and a collar with the owner’s name inscribed on a metal plate. That’s because many dogs were allowed to roam, even in cities, and dog bites were a real public health problem. Muzzling the dog was once part of the routines of conscientious dog care. The strap that fits around the back of the head is broken, These muzzles were apparently designed to allow dogs to breathe easily, drink water and pant, while preventing them from opening their mouths wide enough to bite. I think that my muzzle is the “Patent Automatic Muzzle,” shown in use in the larger image of a dog’s head. The small image is a detail from a catalog from a sporting good company that also sold dog supplies and equipment. It survived, even in its broken condition, because someone just didn’t throw it away. It’s a very rare survival of a utilitarian object - an artifact that, I imagine, no one loved or felt sentimental about. I knew what it was because I had seen a wood engraving from 1900 of a similar (or perhaps it is the same) muzzle. In 2005, I purchased this Victorian dog muzzle from an online auction.
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