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CHAPTER VIII 

 General Remarks. 



The high-water mark of the breed was probably 

 reached at the first great championship club show at the 

 Regent's Park, London, in June, 1905 the first club 

 show on big lines that has ever been held for the breed. 

 The venue was charming, and the collection of specimens 

 of the breed unquestionably the finest ever held ; -i 

 record entry, in fact, for the world. The Committee or 

 the South of England Airedale Terrier Association, with 

 that innate love of true sport that has always distin- 

 guished them, resolved upon the selection of a Northern 

 judge, and that doyen of the breed, Mr. Maude Barrett, 

 of Otley, was the gentleman upon whom the choice fell. 

 The result was, as might have been anticipated, as near 

 faultless as judging can possibly be. Mr. Barrett is a 

 consummate master of the cult, so error was therefor- 

 impossible or nearly so. The show is to be an annual 

 one, so that the Airedale takes his place with the mcst 

 fashionable breeds of the Terrier fancy ; and if breeders 

 will only stick to his sporting character, as well as develop- 

 ing mere show points, his place will in the whirligig of 

 time inevitably be the first place. It may be thought 

 by those who are over hasty in judgment that dogs 

 which the writer has had the honour to own, or in 

 partnership with Mr. E. Royston Mills, have been too 

 freely mentioned in the historical part of this book, but 

 it is a perfectly just and an obvious reflection that the 

 history of the breed for the last dozen years at least has 

 had a great deal to do with our own kennel, and, like 

 " the King's head " in poor Uncle Dick's life, it must 

 keep popping up when writing extensively of the Airedale 

 Terrier. 



