THE WIRE-HAIR FOX-TERRIER 213 



In the early days the smooth was not crossed with the wire 

 to anything like the extent that it was later, and this fact is 

 probably the cause of the salvation of the variety. The wire- 

 hair has had more harm done to him by his being injudiciously 

 crossed with the smooth than probably by anything else. 



The greatest care must be exercised in the matter of coat 

 before any such cross is effected. The smooth that is crossed 

 with the wire must have a really hard, and not too full coat, 

 and, as there are very, very few smooths now being shown with 

 anything like a proper coat for a terrier to possess, the very 

 greatest caution is necessary. Some few years back, almost 

 incalculable harm was done to the variety by a considerable 

 amount of crossing into a strain of smooths with terribly soft 

 flannelly coats. Good-looking terriers were produced, and 

 therein lay the danger, but their coats were as bad as bad could 

 be ; and, though people were at first too prone to look over 

 this very serious fault, they now seem to have recovered their 

 senses, and thus, although much harm was done, any serious 

 damage has been averted. If a person has a full-coated wire- 

 hair bitch he is too apt to put her to a smooth simply because 

 it is a smooth, whom he thinks will neutralise the length of his 

 bitch's jacket, but this is absolute heresy, and must not be 

 done unless the smooth has the very hardest of hair on him. 

 If it is done, the result is too horrible for words : you get an 

 elongated, smooth, full coat as soft as cotton wool, and some- 

 times as silkily wavy as a lady's hair. This is not a coat for any 

 terrier to possess, and it is not a wire-hair terrier's coat, which 

 ought to be a hard, crinkly, peculiar-looking broken coat on 

 top, with a dense undercoat underneath, and must never be 

 mistakable for an elongated smooth terrier's coat, which can 

 never at any time be a protection from wind, water, or dirt, 

 and is, in reality, the reverse. 



The wire-hair has had a great advertisement, for better or 

 worse, in the extraordinarily prominent way he has been 

 mentioned in connection with " faking " and trimming. 

 Columns have been written on this subject, speeches of 



