THE WIRE-HAIR FOX-TERRIER. 



349 



show where a terrier with marvellously 

 straight legs and great bone was very 

 badly treated by a judge (of smooths), and 

 when asked the reason why, his reply was 

 " Oh, her legs are so crooked." As a fact, 

 the hair had got ruffled up on the legs, as 

 of course it is always likely to do ; the judge 

 had never handled the terrier, and one pass 

 of the hand down the leg would at once have 

 corrected his misap- 

 prehension, and have 

 revealed a pair of 

 " props " like unto 

 those of a perfect Fox- 

 hound, and this it was 

 surely his duty to find 

 out. 



As to point num- 

 ber five. The wire- 

 hair has had a great 

 advertisement, for 

 better or worse, in the 

 extraordinarily promi- 

 nent way he has been 

 mentioned in connec- 

 tion with " faking " 

 and trimming. 

 Columns have been 

 written on this subject, 



speeches of inordinate length have been 

 delivered, motions and resolutions have 

 been carried, rules have been promulgated, 

 etc., etc., and the one dog mentioned 

 throughout in connection with all of them 

 has been our poor old, much maligned 

 wire-hair. He has been the scapegoat, 

 the subject of all this brilliancy and elo- 

 quence, and were he capable of understanding 

 the language of the human, we may feel sure 

 much amusement would be his. 



There are several breeds that are more 

 trimmed than the wire-hair, and that 

 might well be quoted before him in this 

 connection. 



There is a -vast difference between legiti- 

 mate trimming, and what is called " faking." 

 All dogs with long or wire-hair or rough 

 coats naturally require more attention, and 

 more grooming than those with short smooth 

 coats. For the purposes of health and 

 cleanliness it is absolutely necessary that 



MISS HATFEILD'S CH. MORDEN BULLSEYE 



BY COTTAGE PETER MORDEN BELLA. 



Photograph by Revdey, Wantage. 



such animals should be frequently well 

 groomed. There is no necessity, given a 

 wire-hair with a good and proper coat, to 

 use anything but an ordinary close toothed 

 comb, a go'od hard brush, and an occasional 

 removal of long old hairs on the head, ears, 

 neck.legs and belly, with the finger and thumb. 

 The Kennel Club regulations for the pre- 

 paration of dogs for exhibition are perfectly 

 clear on this subject, 

 and are worded most 

 properly. 



They say that a dog 

 " shall be disqualified 

 if any part of his coat 

 or hair has been cut, 

 clipped, singed, or 

 rasped down by any 

 substance, or if any of 

 the new or fast coat 

 has been removed by 

 pulling or plucking in 

 any manner." There 

 is no law, therefore, 

 against the removal 

 of old coat by finger 

 and thumb, and any- 

 one who keeps long- 

 haired dogs knows 

 that it is essential to the dog's health that 

 there should be none. 



It is in fact most necessary in certain 

 cases, at certain times, to pull old coat out 

 in this way. Several terriers with good 

 coats are apt to grow long hair very thickly 

 round the neck and ears, and unless this is 

 removed when it gets old, the neck and ears 

 are liable to become infested with objection- 

 able little slate-coloured nits, which will 

 never be found as long as the coat is kept 

 down when necessary. Bitches in whelp, 

 and after whelping, although ordinarily 

 good-coated, seem to go all wrong in their 

 coats unless properly attended to in this 

 way, and here again, if you wish to keep 

 your bitch free from skin trouble, it is a 

 necessity, in those cases which need it, to 

 use finger and thumb. 



If the old hair is pulled out only when it 

 is old, there is no difficulty about it, and 

 no hurt whatever is occasioned to the dog, 



