The Smooth Fox Terrier 427 



too light for that day, but was a showy customer and did well as a filler for 

 kennel prizes in combination with the cracks of the kennel. 



Exhibitors of recent years perhaps imagine that there never was such 

 keen and heavy competition as during their days, but that is a great mistake. 

 Duplicate entries make great padding in estimating competition, but do 

 not add to the number of dogs at a show. We will take the 1888 New York 

 show and compare it with that of 1905. Champion fox terriers equivalent 

 to our open class had three in dogs and five in bitches; this year the total 

 entry in open dogs was seven, of which four would not have been eligible 

 under the old rules. The open class of 1888, now our limit class, had eigh- 

 teen entries; this year's limit class had ten entries, of which only five could 

 have shown under the old rules. The 1888 novice was for both sexes and 

 had twenty-four entries, and under similar conditions this year there would 

 have been twelve entries. The dog puppy classes show little difference, 

 eleven in 1888 and twelve in 1905, but the bitches in 1888 numbered twenty- 

 three and in 1905 but thirteen. The comparison in the other bitch classes 

 shows still greater differences, and that of the totals is startling: in 1888 

 103 fox terriers were entered in the smooth division of the breed, whereas 

 in 1905 there were actually but forty-nine dogs, and even the duplicate entries 

 only increased the total entry to eighty-one. There were also thirty-one 

 entries for the three stakes of 1888, and it is doubtful if there were ten at 

 New York this year that were stake competitors. 



The cause for this decadence in fox terriers is not hard to find. The 

 breed has for many years now been under the control of some one or two 

 leading exhibitors, but that of itself has not killed off competition, for other 

 breeds have been similarly situated and grown; but these kennels have 

 toured the country from one end to the other and left nothing to the local 

 men but the ribbons of the local classes or the equally unsatisfying cards 

 of commendation. That some of the wiser heads in the American Kennel 

 Club are aware of what is being done to the injury of dog showing is evident 

 by the recent restriction of the novice classes to American-bred dogs. That, 

 however, is plugging a large, round hole with a small, square peg. The 

 foreigner can only win one or, at most, two novice classes, whereas the travel- 

 ling kennels keep on winning in the good classes, and it is these kennels and 

 not the imported dogs in the novice classes that have numbed the ambition 

 of fox-terrier men throughout the country. Nothing but a rule placing 

 the American dog owned beyond a certain distance from the place of the 



