Kerry Blue Terrier – From Farm Dog to Beauty Queen

by Amy Fernandez

Fancy grooming has attracted controversy from the moment a dog show met a hairbrush. To the uninformed observer, much of it looks weird and decadent, suggesting something vaguely illicit going on behind the scenes. That sort of dodgy rationalizing isn’t confined to outsiders. That banner cry for the natural look is as old as the sport itself- as is the confusing doubletalk seeking to define the point where enhancement veers into cheating. Sort of like herding cats, policing that big murky zone is a thank- less, endless, virtually impossible task. Therefore the prevailing bad attitude about the whole business is no mystery. It also over- looks a key issue.

More than a few breeds owe their success to a canine beautification process of one form or another. Quite likely, the breed would have fizzled into oblivion otherwise. Yorkies, Maltese, Poodles, Poms, to name a few that were essentially dead in the water until some visionary ge- nius launched a spiffed up version that made the dog world sit up and take notice.

Wires are the textbook case. For decades Fox Terrier intelligentsia denied the existence of this uncouth country cousin, banning it from the ring, omitting it from the standard, and basically hoping it would go away. Then somebody pulled out a stripping knife and that revelatory experiment unleashed an invincible Godzilla destined to stomp the competition for a century.

Fox Terriers paved the way for the art of putting down wire coats. Like a bespoke suit, that crisply tailored jacket (with various breed specific tweaks) became the signature image of show dog success. Breed after breed, Airedales, Irish, Scotties, they all did big win- ning. Terriers had this game locked up. Only one thing surpassed the adrenaline rush of annihilating the competition – being first to blow them away with the next big thing. No stone was unturned, no expense spared, no remote corner of the British Isles went un- explored in the search to discover the next Terrier chart topper.

Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=277072

Posted by Liz on Nov 30 2023. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.