I was sent a link to a Dog World (UK) article by Jessica Holm in which she writes:
Eh? Who the hell needs to use chalk to strip a terrier?
I have stripped terriers for better than 30 years and the only chalk I own is in a chalk reel for snapping a line for carpentry purposes.
And yes, I have shown terriers in the AKC. No chalk. Not once. Ever.
Do I care if others use chalk? Not a whit.
My position is that dog shows are no different than human beauty contests; if you do not expect the hair to be dyed, the chest pneumatically inflated, the suits taped, the legs shaved, and the teeth capped, you are out of your mind.
All beauty contests are nothing more than a fortress of lies, deception, payola, back-stabbing, fakery and romantic puffery. Everything is artifice.
But you have to use chalk to strip a terrier? Nonsense and blarney.
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"....surely we all know that expert terrier grooming and stripping without chalk and coat preparations would be nigh on impossible..."
Eh? Who the hell needs to use chalk to strip a terrier?
I have stripped terriers for better than 30 years and the only chalk I own is in a chalk reel for snapping a line for carpentry purposes.
And yes, I have shown terriers in the AKC. No chalk. Not once. Ever.
Do I care if others use chalk? Not a whit.
My position is that dog shows are no different than human beauty contests; if you do not expect the hair to be dyed, the chest pneumatically inflated, the suits taped, the legs shaved, and the teeth capped, you are out of your mind.
All beauty contests are nothing more than a fortress of lies, deception, payola, back-stabbing, fakery and romantic puffery. Everything is artifice.
But you have to use chalk to strip a terrier? Nonsense and blarney.
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5 comments:
Hi Patrick! A JRT owner once told me I should strip my long haired JRT in the summer so he'd be cooler. Then we found some online sources (and a vet) claiming that he'd be hotter if shaved because his long hair functions to cool him. What's your take on this? We don't show him so we don't care about typical appearance issues; we just want him to be cool and comfortable in our desert summer heat. Do you have any resources/instructions for how to strip properly? How about just shaving him so he looks like a smooth coat?
Shaving a terrier with clippers is fine for a pet, and maybe preferred by some.
What it does do is make for a much softer coat -- what some people want and what you generally want to avoid in a working terrier (especially one that works in winter snow and ice). I would also use a slicker brush to thin out the under coat -- it will make air go through the coat better and reduce heat trapping, pull out fleas and generally make the dog more comfortable and neat.
A proper terrier stripping is done twice a year and can be a fairly minor thing with a broken coat, or a serious job on a rough coat, depending on the breed.
I use a simple mid-range terrier stipping knife (you will have to order one and they are almost never sold in pet stores) and give some instructions here >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-strip-terrier.html
P.
Sorry Patrick I misread it as cruelty cases in general were brachys.
Just breeding extreme brachys is cruelty itself.
A friend of my parents brought her dog over. I suspect it is some kind of terrier cross, with maybe Shih-tzu or something to give it a shorter snout. As I brushed out the dog's wirey coat, I remembered the picture of Trooper's hair parting down his back, which is exactly how this dog's hair appeared. So I tried to do a bit of stripping with a few hairs at a time.
It was exactly as you said: the hair just comes out, the dog didn't even let on that it knew what was happening, and while I wasn't able to strip the coat entirely (didn't have time), there was a good bit of difference between the start and the end result.
Oh, and no chalk, or rosin either...funny that.
Generally speaking, if the AKC says to do it, I don't.
Debi and the TX JRTs.
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