The working Terrier!
- The Wheaten is a working terrier and in the past was used for hunting badgers (Teastas Mor : major trials) and rabbits and rats (Teastas Beag : minor trials).
- To test a dog’s determination and courage a Wheaten in those days had to pass at the trials, before it could become a Champion.
- The Field Trial Certificate was done away with in 1968 by the IKC for obvious reasons
GENERAL APPEARANCE :
A hardy, active, short coupled dog, well built, giving the idea of strength. Not too leggy, nor too low to the ground.
The key word in assessing a Wheaten is moderation.
He is a moderate sized dog, not too big, not too small.
The general appearance is of a well built, sturdy, proportionate dog with no exaggerated points.
The coat at maturity is warm and shining with waves or curls. It is never fluffed up.
At the risk of seeming repetitive it must be stressed that a dog is a whole total entity in any breed and no one point of its requirements can be developed or exaggerated at the expense of the others.
Just because a breed carries a description of its coat in its name does not mean that coat is the be all and end all of that dog.
Coat is important in so far as it MUST be soft , silky, shiny, and coloured, NEVER woolly.
“No Body of foreign owners, no outside Kennel Club has any right to draw up a standard for an incoming foreign breed or to alter the existing standard of the country of origin. The experts behind any native breed in any country are usually natives of that country who have fostered and protected that breed like their predecessors and they are the best fitted to decide on a standard for their own breed.”
So, Why then is one of Irelands oldest breeds being victimised and exploited by people overseas who have turned it into what they think it should be?
MORE AND MORE OFTEN
- Very short backs
- Dead ears
- Black beard and ears
- Over angulated rears = untypical action
- Woolly, heavy coat,
- wrong colour of coat
