248 DOGS AND ALL ABOUT THEM 



' fancy ' or show sense. Still, it should be long enough 

 to hang as a thatch over the soft, woolly real coat of the animal- 

 and keep it dry so that a good shake or two will throw off 

 most of the water ; while the under coat should be so thick 

 and naturally oily that the dog can swim through a fair- 

 sized river and not get wet, or be able to sit out through a 

 drenching rain guarding something of his master's and be 

 none the worse. This under coat I, at least, have never seen 

 a judge look for, but for the working terrier it is most important. 

 The size of the dog is perhaps best indicated by weight. The 

 dog should not weigh more than 18 lb., nor the bitch more 

 than 16 lb. 



" There is among judges, I find with all respect I say it 

 an undue regard for weight and what is called strength, also 

 for grooming, which means brushing or plucking out all the 

 long hair to gratify the judge. One might as well judge of 

 Sandow's strength, not by his performances, but by the kind 

 of wax he puts on his moustache ! 



" The West Highland Terrier of the old sort I do not, of 

 course, speak of bench dogs earned their li ving following fox, 

 badger, or otter wherever these went underground, between, 

 over, or under rocks that no man could get at to move, and 

 some of such size that a hundred men could not move them. 

 (And oh ! the beauty of their note when they came across the 

 right scent !) I want my readers to understand this, and not 

 to think of a Highland fox-cairn as if it were an English fox- 

 earth dug in sand ; nor of badger work as if it were a question 

 of locating the badger and then digging him out. No ; the 

 badger makes his home amongst rocks, the small ones perhaps 

 two or three tons in weight, and probably he has his ' hinner 

 end ' against one of three or four hundred tons no digging 

 him out and, moreover, the passages between the rocks 

 must be taken as they are ; no scratching them a little wider. 

 So if your dog's ribs are a trifle too big he may crush one or 

 two through the narrow slit and then stick. He will never be 

 able to pull himself back at least, until starvation has so 



