Crooked Legs. 103 



in selecting his puppies he prefers the shorter-legged ones, 

 which, if they enter all right, are kept and crossed as 

 occasion may require. No dog is, however, used unless 

 his credentials as a worker are of the best, and his care in 

 this has no doubt been the leading cause for the success 

 of his strain. 



" The points I try to breed for," continues Mr. Cowley, 

 " are especially a long, powerful head, small drop ears, 

 and weather-resisting jackets ; if a little long in the back, 

 they are none the worse for work underground, where they 

 can turn and twist about better than a very short-coupled 

 dog. Nearly all animals that live much underground are 

 made thus, long in the body compared to the length of the 

 legs, such as moles, weasels, polecats, badgers, &c. 



" I try to breed my terriers as straight in the legs as I can, 

 but, like most short-legged members of the canine race 

 dachshunds, Basset hounds, Dandie Dinmonts, Scottish 

 terriers, and some spaniels, to wit it is difficult to get them 

 perfectly straight. I would not draft an otherwise good 

 dog because he turns his toes out. As for weight, I like 

 i61b. for dogs, and i4ilb. for bitches. At these weights 

 they can possess bone enough and have their ribs suffi- 

 ciently well sprung, and need not possess such exaggerated 

 narrow fronts which a big dog must have if he is to get 

 into an ordinary-sized earth suffering, consequently, from 

 insufficient room for play of lungs and heart. For all work 

 that a terrier is called upon to do, I think a i61b. dog is the 

 best." 



So say I, and it is because there was, and is, a tendency 

 to get our fox terriers, both rough and smooth, too big, that 

 recourse has been had to breeding them with narrow, un- 

 natural fronts, giving a stiltiness and stiffness to their 



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