Yorkshire and other Toy Terriers. 359 



case, no pains have been taken to produce them 

 with straight terrier-like fore legs. A bandy-legged 

 animal is not appreciated by the modern lovers of a 

 fancy dog, omitting, of course, the British bulldog ; 

 and as I fancy these toy bull terriers are hardier 

 and less in-bred than their cousins, a clever man 

 might find it worth his while trying to produce them 

 to pattern. Three or four generations of careful 

 crossing should easily do this, and a white bull 

 terrier, not more than 61b. in weight, sturdy, 

 compact, determined, able to kill rats, and not so 

 big as to be in the way in the drawing-room, would 

 certainly find favour and a good market. 



That there is a decadence in all these smooth- 

 coated toy terriers is not to be doubted, and I am 

 not alone in the belief that this has been brought 

 about by the difficulty in breeding good specimens. 

 This difficulty has arisen from the misjudged 

 persistency with which the " fanciers " of a few 

 years back bred for diminutiveness alone, trying to 

 produce mites of creatures 3lb. or 4lb. weight, 

 altogether ignoring that such were little more than 

 abortions, too fragile to trot behind their mistress, 

 too delicate to live. The smallest dog I ever saw 

 was a black and tan toy terrier, which weighed 

 2ioz. at 10 months old, but it was neither useful 

 nor ornamental, thought it might be considered a 



