CHAPTER XXXIII
THE WIRE-HAIR FOX-TERRIER

THE wire-hair Fox-terrier is, with the exception of its coat, identical with the smooth Fox-terrier-full brother in fact to him. The two varieties are much interbred, and several litters in consequence include representatives of both ; and not only this, but it is quite a frequent occurrence to get a smooth puppy from wire-hair parents, although for some generations neither of the parents may have had any smooth cross in their pedigrees.

The North of England and South Wales (to a lesser extent) have ever been the home of the wire-hair, and nearly all the best specimens have come originally from one or the other of those districts. There is no doubt that there was excellent stock in both places, and there is also no doubt that though at times this was used to the best advantage, there was a good deal of carelessness in mating, and a certain amount in recording the parentage of some of the terriers. With regard to this latter point it is said that one gentleman who had quite a large kennel and several stud dogs, but who kept no books, used never to bother about remembering which particular dog he had put to a certain bitch, but generally satisfied himself as to the sire of a puppy when it came in from " walk " by just examining it and saying " Oh, that pup must be by owd Jock or Jim," as the case might be, " 'cos he's so loike 'im," and down he would go on the entry form accordingly. However this may be, there is no doubt that the sire wou' I be a wire-hair Fox-terrier, and, although the pedigree therefore may not have been quite right, the terrier was invariably

pure bred.

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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 wirehair 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 sometimes 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

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