8 



consideration of a real fancier, whether his favourite be 

 a pet or a workman. The idea that clever trimming will 

 deceive an experienced judge is really laughable. Try 

 it on with any of our front rank judges, and you will 

 be fired out of the ring, with an unsympathetic reference 

 to the show being a month too soon for your shorn 

 Terrier. A broken coat can, no doubt, to the casual eye, 

 cover a multitude of sins, and sometimes a sausage body ; 

 but how any expert can cover up, by trimming, defects of 

 make and shape is one of those things, as Lord Dundreary 

 would say, " no fellah can understand " always allow- 

 ing, of course, that the judge is a capable one. An 

 adjudicator who knows his business will always penalise 

 exhibits trimmed up for his deception. There are 

 certain lines of blood that make for sheep coats. Breeder.- 

 have themselves wholly to blame if they breed to those 

 lines. A smooth coated bitch of modern breeding is the 

 best asset a fancier can have in his kennel. 



Quite a lot of nonsense has been written of late years 

 upon the size, chiefly by individuals who never owned ;, 

 good Terrier, and have not the nous to breed one ; 

 and in the highly improbable event of having raised 

 something out of the common, would more than likely 

 (such is the windbag's crass ignorance !) sell their best for 

 a waster. In this connection. I vividly remember one of 

 these ignoramuses who, having used a well-known 

 champion stud dog, brought the pride of the litter for 

 my admiration. I knew my man, and therefore ventured 

 diffidently to suggest that the pup's skull would go 

 coarse. The reply given, with intense earnestness, was, 

 " Leave that to me ; I'll stop it." The very easiest point 

 of all to obtain is size, and the hardest point, quality. 

 T have never yet known a lasting front ranker who was a 

 big one. I read a very able letter in Our Doi/x on this 

 point from a well-known breeder, who very fairly 

 reasoned, with sound logic, that size was purely relative. 



