tever is occasioned to the dog,
who does not in reality object at all. If, however, new or fast coat
is pulled out it not only hurts the dog but it is also a very foolish
thing to do, and the person guilty of such a thing fully merits
disqualification.

Most of the nonsense that is heard about trimming emanates, of course,
from the ignoramus; the knife, he says, is used on them all, a sharp
razor is run over their coats, they are singed, they are cut, they
are rasped (the latter is the favourite term). Anything like such
a sweeping condemnation is quite inaccurate and most unfair. It is
impossible to cut a hair without being detected by a good judge, and
very few people ever do any such thing, at any rate for some months
before the terrier is exhibited, for if they do, they know they are
bound to be discovered, and, as a fact, are.

When the soft-coated dogs are clipped they are operated on, say, two
or three months before they are wanted, and the hair gets a chance
to grow, but even then it is easily discernible, and anyone who, like
the writer, has any experience of clipping dogs in order to cure them
of that awful disease, follicular mange, knows what a sight the animal
is when he grows his coat, and how terribly unnatural he looks.

The wire-hair has never been in better state than he is to-day; he
is, generally speaking, far ahead of his predecessors of twenty-five
years ago, not only from a show point of view, but also in working
qualities. One has only to compare the old portraits of specimens
of the variety with dogs of the present day to see this. A good many
individual specimens of excellent merit, it is true, there were, but
they do not seem to have been immortalised in this way. The portraits
of those we do see are mostly representations of awful-looking brutes,
as bad in shoulders, and light of bone, as they could be; they appear
also to have had very soft coats, somewhat akin to that we see on
a Pomeranian nowadays, though it is true this latter fault may have
been that of the artist, or probably amplified by him.

Perhaps the strongest kennel of wire-hairs that has existed was that
owned a good many years ago by Messrs. Maxwell and Cassell. Several
champions were in the kennel at the same time, and they were a sorty
lot of nice size, and won prizes all over the country. Jack Frost,
Jacks Again, Liffey, Barton Wonder, Barton Marvel, and several other
good ones, were inmates of this kennel, the two latt