202 The Fox Terrier. 



is needed from day to day is for the dog's coat to be 

 thoroughly combed with a steel or metal comb, the teeth of 

 which are not long or yet of wide gauge ; wider in the 

 teeth, but somewhat similar to a small tooth comb. This 

 will remove the loose or dead hair ; and, as we know the 

 hair on a dog's body does not all grow at the same time, 

 there is always a certain amount — less or more — of per- 

 fectly new hair, while other portions begin to lose life or 

 deaden, hence come out with the least combing or friction. 

 A good brushing is also necessary, for this tends to keep 

 the skin clean and in a healthy condition, hence the coat 

 grows strong, for the young hair is not choked or injured 

 by the dirty condition of both the skin and coat — which it 

 is bound to be if the coat is only groomed once a month 

 or so. 



11 My readers will gather from the above remarks that I 

 specially make reference to dogs that naturally grow sound 

 and hard hair. In the case of strains that are naturally 

 soft in their coats, and grow — as usually they do — an 

 undue quantity of undercoat, the same treatment may be 

 adopted, but you cannot possibly present them with a sound 

 (not hard) natural coat, because the greater amount of top 

 coat that is groomed away leaves you the softer under 

 jacket. I know of no means by honest treatment that 

 can be taken to harden the hair, hence my often repeated 

 reasons for finding fault with those judges who do 

 not make allowance for texture of coat. They keep 

 complaining about bad coats, yet by continually placing 

 soft-coated dogs in the prize list encourage in the ring 

 what they condemn outside. 



" With reference to my own kennel, I have for the last 

 half dozen years never admitted any strain — I speciallv 



