The Terriers. 19 



assistants in the shooting field. As a matter of fact, 

 those best adapted for hard work either with fox- 

 hounds or otterhounds are cross-bred, hardy dogs, 

 specially trained for the purpose, although many 

 of the " pedigree " animals will do similar duty to 

 the best of their ability, but their " pedigree " and 

 no doubt inbreeding to a certain extent, has made 

 them constitutionally and generally weaker than 

 their less blue-blooded cousins. 



" Some terriers have long bodies and short legs," 

 says an old writer, and so they have at the present 

 time. Dr. Walsh (" Stonehenge ") ascribed those 

 long-bodied, crooked-legged terriers to the fact of a 

 cross with the dachshund. Personally, I consider 

 that this deformity and crooked fore legs are a 

 great deformity, and one that should not be allowed 

 in any terrier, Scottish, Dandie Dinmont, or Skye, 

 any more than it is allowed in an Irish terrier or a 

 fox terrier arises from the dogs having been bred for 

 length of body. This long, unnaturally long, body, 

 heavy too, has gradually forced down the legs until 

 they have become bandy or crooked through sheer 

 weakness -an " inherited deformity" that some 

 breeders have come to look upon as the correct 

 thing. All these unduly long-bodied terriers have 

 more or less " crook " on their fore legs, like unto 

 those of the basset and dachshund. These hounds 



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