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I know is to put a dog down in good form ; and my own 

 view is that the right down bad condition in which many 

 show Terriers are benched is due more to laziness than 

 ignorance. At eight months old your Terrier should be 

 stripped of his coat all over, using the thumb and finger 

 only. After that it is only a question of using the 

 brush and hound glove, good food, comfortable sleeping 

 quarters, and judicious exercise. In four weeks, gener- 

 ally, the coat will be on again, and the pride of your 

 kennel, if he is good enough, fit to battle with the best. 

 Genius has often been baldly quoted as the art of taking 

 pains. A fancier need not be a genius to breed a great 

 dog; but it is imperative that he should spare no pains 

 in bringing him to the acme of show form and condition. 

 And let me say here that those who preach the cult of 

 perfect show form are the best friends of the novice exhi- 

 bitor. Canine history abounds with instances of novice 

 exhibitors showing really great dogs in right down bad 

 form, with the result that a perfectly trained dog, in the 

 pink of condition, but inferior on aggregate show points, 

 has pegged the other back, and the novice with an imper- 

 fect knowledge of the rara avis which he has harboured 

 unawares, listens to the voice of the knowing dealer, and 

 parts with his Terrier, to his afterwards eternal regret. 

 All this could easily have been avoided had he had the 

 nous to have benched the dog in good form. In 

 these days of specialist clubs and their multiplication 

 there is no excuse for the novice not learning all there is 

 to be learnt, more particularly of the breed under notice, 

 branches of the parent club having been formed for 

 entirely educational purposes. 



