THE WIRE-HAIR FOX-TERRIER. 
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 Reveley, Wantage. 
349 
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 good hard brush, and an occasional 
removal of long old hairs on the head, ‘ears, 
neck, legs and belly, with the fingerand 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, 
