Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1939-01-05
DOGGIE DOINGS
BY M. G. DENLINGER

The Fox Terrier is perhaps the
best known and most widely distrib-
uted of all pure bred dogs. You will
find Fox Terrier wherever the Eng
lish language is spoken. Clubs have
been formed in Belgium, France,
Italy and other European countries to
promote the interest of the Fox Ter
rier.
It is an ancient breed. The Fox Ter
rier is of English origin. In 1870 Col
onel Thornton's Pitch, smooth
coated white terrier with markings
was recorded both in print and on
canvas. 1t is probable that the Smooth
and the wire sprung from widely diff
ferent sources. A profound student
of the related breeds claims that the
ancestor of the wire was the old
rough-coated working terrier of
Wales, Derbyshire and Durham, and
that the more important ancestors of
the Smooth were the smooth coated
black and tan, the Bull Terrier, the
Greyhound and the Beagle.
The Smooth antedated the Wire by
some fifteen or twenty years, in the
show ring and at first was classified
among the sporting breeds, a tribute
to his keen nose, remarkable eye-
sight and staying powers in accom-
plishing the work for which he was
principally used, driving the Fox
from his hole or the drain in which
he had taken refuge when to closely
pursued by the hounds.
Wires were literally crossed with
Smooths in the earlier days of breed
ing in order to give to the Wire the
predominating white fermentation,
the cleaner cut head and more clas-
steal outline of a Wire-haired Fox
Terrier will be found without many
Smooth ancestors. On the other hand
the Wire out-cross appears only in
the pedigrees of such of the modern
Smooths as descend in the T line, so
called, from Dusky O'Orsay, bred by
Mr.. Francis Redmond in England in
1915 in deliberate attempt, it is al
legged, to improve the Smooth. It is
believed that the T line now exists
only in Australia.
The practice of interviewing the
Smooth with the Wire and vice-versa
has been almost universally discon-
tinued for some years.
An English writer has well de-
scribed the ideal Fox Terrier in very
short words as follows:
He should be strong and gay, with
brave, wise way with him in the
fields or at home. His head should be
long and lean, with much strength in
front of his eyes; these should be
small, dark and small and full of the
pride of life. His ears should be small,
set high on his head, and in shape
like a v. His neck should be long
with a slight arch. The bones from
which the forelegs spring should
slope well back and be nice and long.
The forelegs must be straight and
round and thick; his hindlegs strong
with good reach, and his hooks should
be near the ground; his feet should
be small and round, and his pads
thick. He should have a deep, but not
at all a broad chest; and his ribs
should spring well out, SO as to make
deep but not fiat side. His back
should appear straight, or with a
slight curve; and his loins should be
firm and strong. His tail must spring
from the top and not from the back
of the dog; it should be stout and
stand straight up. His coat should be
smooth and straight, and hard and
dense. He should be white but his
marks, black and tan or both, may be
of all shapes and on all parts of the
dog, but there must be more white
than black or tan; he must not have