THE WEST HIGHLAND WHITE TERRIER. 



393 



the bright, intelligent eye, the look of interest 

 showTi in the faces, is quite remarkable. 



There is another point of very great 

 importance which not even the photograph 

 can show — this is the under coat. 



Only the outer coat can be shown by 

 such illustrations ; this should be very soft 

 on the forehead and get gradually harder 

 towards the haunches, but the harsh coat 

 beloved of the show bench is all nonsense, 

 and is the easiest thing in the world to 

 " fake," as anyone can try who will dip 

 his o«Ti hair into the 

 now fashionable " ant- 

 uric " baths. 



The outer coat should 

 be distinctly long, but 

 not long in the " fancj' " 

 or show sense. Still, it 

 should be long cnougli 

 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 naturall}' oily that 

 the dog can swim 

 through a fair - sized 

 river and not get w'et. 

 or be able to sit out through a droncliing 

 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 in- 

 dicated by weight. The dog should not 

 weigh more than i8 lb., nor the bitch more 

 than i6 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 groom- 

 ing, 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 — earn their living following fox. 

 badger, or otter wherever these went under- 

 ground, 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 come 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 Eng- 

 lish fox-earth dug in sand ; nor of badger 



COL. MALCOLMS SONNY AND SARAH. 



work as if it were a question of locating tlie 

 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 reduced 

 him that he will probably be unable, if 

 set free, to win (as we say in Scotland) 

 his way back to the open. 



I remember a tale of one of my father's 

 terriers who got so lost. The keepers went 



