Front Legs and Furnishings
Part One

WE NEVER, NEVER "Strip Out" the furnishings! We may, at this time, take them down a bit shorter than we would if this were the week before the show. I say MAY, because we may not too. I will state again. . furnishings take a long time to grow, and were we to "strip them out" our dog would be ready to show MONTHS before his furnishings would! So we are going to be very careful, and we are going to take out only a very few hairs at a time, going over and over, the same area if necessary, until we have accomplished the correct line.

The length and thickness of our dog's furnishings, that is, the length and thickness that we are going to leave on, and encourage, depends on how our dog is built, overall, his amount of "bone", and the way he moves.

Let us mention "bone". A dog with good, solid, round bone requires a shorter length and thickness of furnishings. As the bone decreases in these qualities, the length and thickness of furnishings must be increased. This combination of length and thickness I refer to as "wealth" of furnishings.

The length of your dog's body will also influence the trimming of his furnishings, and naturally, we will be greatly influence by his movement. Incorrect trimming can make a GOOD moving dog appear to be a bad mover, and correct trimming can make a poor mover appear to be moving in a decent fashion. NO AMOUNT OF TRIMMING can make a good mover out of a bad mover! We are simply trying not to call attention to this fault. Many breeders of the Smooth variety believethat the Wire's furnishings cover a myriad of faults. The fact is the furnishings CALL ATTENTION to the stance, their movement and soundness of bone of the Wire variety. As the dog moves, the furnishings lift, fall and flow with the action of the legs so that ALL movement is accentuated! The very contour of the leg itself suffers this accentuation, calling undue attention to minor faults, and more so to major ones. This accentuation is the prime reason we do not trim to follow the natural contour of the leg (see diagrams).

It has long seemed to me that the hardest part of trimming concerns the head and the legs. So let's see what we can do with the legs....

First we must get our dog to STAND CORRECTLY. As the grooming session progresses in length of time, our dog gets tired and starts "letting down". You cannot trim his legs and feet correctly if he is standing down on his pasterns, or all spraddled out, so hoist him up! In doing so, he will, since he's getting tired, probably hang in the loop. This will partially cut into his air intake, so he will sound like a "wind-broken" horse, or a vacuum cleaner giving its last gasps. PAY NO ATTENTION. However, if his tongue starts turning blue, you do have him up a bit too high! Many dogs will put up a terrible battle, which is one reason why this sort of training should be initiated when the dog is a little puppy. CORRECT TRIMMING NEEDS CORRECT POSTURE! Not just for the legs and feet alone, but for the neck, shoulder area, levelness of the back, the correct underline, etc. Look at it this way, if you are having a suit tailor made, you must go for fittings. If you expect your suit to fit properly, you MUST stand properly to have it fitted, or it will not fit YOU when you wear it. If you stand proudly, with your shoulders back and no slouch when you are wearing it, you must stand equally well for the fittings! Preliminary grooming is the "fitting" for you dog's show coat.

Now, with your dog standing properly, we start at the top and work down. Standing at the side of our dog (I assume you have brushed and combed these furnishings), we gaze upon the line that runs from the point of the shoulder down to the toes. The front of the foreleg, where it joins the body, must never appear to extend beyond the point of the shoulder. Ideally, the Fox Terrier should stand just slightly over his front legs, but many do not, generally due to upright shoulders. So we want to produce a comparatively straight line from the point of the shoulder to the toes. If the dog has a well-developed upper forearm, the area where the upper forearm joins the brisket shall be trimmed very fine and short. But we will not trim it finer nor shorter than the hair of the brisket and lower shoulder. The more your dog's legs extend towards the front of his body, the shorter and closer the hair of the upper forearm shall be trimmed. Although you are looking at this line from the side, we are going to work on the upper forearm, so step to the front, please, to trim. You will LIFT the hair, pull a VERY FEW, comb everything back in place, then step to the side to view what you have done. When you have gotten this line to your satisfaction, we will progress to yet another imaginary line.

This time we will step to the front of the dog, and our line will be from the lower shoulder to the toes. In order to gain the proper perspective, it is necessary to grasp the dog by the muzzle and lift his head. But DON'T crank you dog's head up at an angle that throws him off balance! This makes him crouch down behind, and either spraddle, or turn his elbows out in front.

Because a dog is composed of bone and muscle, there are "hills" and "valleys" all over his body. One of these valleys occurs in the area of the elbow, so that the line from the lower shoulder tucks in where the forearm joins. We don't want a dip in this line, so we fill in with hair. This is a bit tricky as this hair must ultimately be short, but dense. We may have a beautiful line while the dog is standing still, but the moment he starts gaiting, we find the movement of the leg, back, makes the skin wrinkle, the hair stands out, and we have made our dog look marvelously "out at the elbow". That's a "No No"! So we must, by repeatedly trimming, arrive at the magic state of just enough, but not too much.