The Forrest City times., 1895-02-15
ANIMALS BEDS.
They Are Chosen with Care and Soms
 Show Fastidious Taste.

They Are Chosen with Care and Soms
 show a Fastidious Taste.
 We have seen a little dachshund which would not go to her basket until the blanket had been held to the hall stove. This she required to be done in summer as well as winter, though the stove was not lighted. A spaniel, kept in stable, used always to leave it's kennel to sleep with the horse Hounds make joint bed on the bench after a long run, lying back to back, and so supporting one another. But sporting dogs should have proper beds made like shallow boxes with sloping sides. They are far more rested in the morn ing than if simply left to lie on straw. This was noted by clever old Devonshire clergyman, great sportsman, who observed that his best retrieving spaniel used always to get into an empty wheelbarrow to sleep when tired. The dog's bed should be rough reproduction of the barrow. with. out the wheel. The poet Cowper's cat. the ''Pensive Selima," was not alone in her taste for making bed in such odd places as watering pots and open draw. CTS. Cats are the most obstinately ca pricious, in their fancies about their beds, of any domestic creature. They will follow particular rug or shawl from room to room If it be removed. in order to sleep on it., or insist on the use of one chair, until they get their way, and then for some reason take a fancy to another. The cleanliest of all animals, anything newly washed or very fresh and bright, strikes them as just the thing for bed. A nicely aired newspaper lying on the floor or in chair, or linen fresh from the wash, is almost irresistible
 Outdoor cats seek warm as well as a tidy bed. The writer was once much surprised when passing through large ship-building yard, to see Il cat fast asleep, lying, it seemed, on mud dy path. But the spot which the cat had selected for it's couch was one at which a hot steampipe passed under the road, and the mud was there baked into a warm dry cake, which made not only clean but an artifi- cially heated sleeping-place. But the oldest taste in beds developed by cat was that entertained.by very highly bred gray Angora, which was justly petted and admired by the family in which it lived. For some months it would only sleep in or upon a hat if such could be found, ladies' hats be- ing preferred. If it could discover one with the inside upper most. it would lie inside it. If not. such was it's love for this form of couch it would curl it. self round the brim, and with its long furry tail and plaint body made fine winter trimming to sum- mer hat. By some accident. drawer in which all the summer hats had been disposed for the winter was left open for some days, after which it was discovered that all the hats had been tried in turn, the cat having final. ly selected one adorned with white la. burnum flowers, which never recovered from the ironing to which it had been subjected.
 Even the animals of the farm have certain preferences in their sleeping arrangements. Cattle and sheep, when left out to ''lie rough" always sleep under trees to avoid the dew; and sheep, if there is no such cover availa- ble, lie on the highest, and conse- luently the dryest, ground. Horses seem less particular, though they have curious fancies as to their bed-litter in stables. 1t would be interesting to know what is the horses point of view as to the substitution of ''moss-litter- for straw, which the rise in the price of the latter has brought into such general use. But, perhaps, the hardier animals are right. A rise in the stand. ard of comfort" is not an unmixed blessing even to their owners London