28 The Fox Terrier. 



third. Further inquiry might elicit the fact that the person 

 so laying down the law was an interested party, and had 

 shown a dog (in the same class as that in which he was 

 criticising the awards) as long on the legs and as defective 

 in ribs and loins as a whippet, and was highly indignant 

 that it had not won the cup. Some modern dog showers 

 are too clever by half, they have kept terriers a few 

 months, won a prize or two with such as they have 

 purchased, and the next stage sees them figuring in the 

 judging ring. 



Once upon a time a dog judge was believed to be a man 

 of lengthened experience — one who had bred, worked, and 

 shown such varieties as were his particular fancy. I have 

 known a man pose as a judge of fox terriers who had 

 never bred one in his life, had never seen a fox in front of 

 hounds, had never seen a terrier go to ground, had never 

 seen either otter, weasel, or foulmart outside the glass case 

 in which they rested on the wall in a bar parlour, and had 

 not even seen a terrier chase a rabbit. His slight experi- 

 ence of working a terrier had betm had at a surreptitious 

 badger bait in the stable of a common beerhouse, and a 

 violent attack on a dozen mangy rats by a mongrel terrier 

 in an improvised pit in the bed-room of the landlord of the 

 same hostel. However, matters may be better managed 

 now in this respect, for in nine cases out of ten a man 

 must be a member of a fox terrier club before he is asked 

 to " judge," though the qualification consists only in 

 payment of his entrance fee and annual subscription. 

 Still, the popularity of the fox terrier has not yet 

 begun to wane, though less respect for pretty colour is 

 apparent, and the fashion as to his shape and a general 

 appearance has changed somewhat. 



