GROOMING AND TRAINING

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TIPS ON HOW TO
Groom and Train your wire

Stripped vs Clipped Coat

The difference between a clipped and a stripped coat is pretty dramatic. When you strip the coat of a wire, you save the beautiful colors and maintain a nice wirey texture. If you clip the coat, the colors will fade and only the soft undercoat will remain. Should you decide to change your mind and start stripping the dog's coat, the colors and texture will come back. However, it will be harder to pull and more painful for the dog. Eventually, if you continue to strip, the coat will be back into a good condition. Many skin problems will disappear if you strip the coat, monitor fleas and watch what you feed your wire. Pictured here are Ch. Wyrelee Banned in Boston CD ROM at 10 years old (clipped) and her daughter, Ch. Wyrelee's First Noel ROM who is in a stripped coat.
Many people who get a wire don't know how to take care of the coat. They either don't want to learn, or don't have the time so they go to a groomer. Most groomers don't have the time that it takes to strip the coat so they clip it. Many of the wires going home from a gooming shop don't look like a wire at all.
Ask the breeder of your puppy for someone close to you that knows how to groom properly. If at all possible, attend a grooming seminar. Perhaps the breeder will teach you how to make your puppy look like a wire fox terrier.
My good friend, Don Vic, who lives in the Monterey Bay area of California is in the background of this page. He is showing someone how to strip. You can also see how he brushes the wire coat with a horse hair mitt.

Places To Get More Grooming Information
Pictured here is Ch. Wyrelee Defiance of Relany, sired by Ch. Killick of the Mess and out of Ch. Wyrelee Cameo and litter brother to Wyrelee Time Traveler (States Kennel Club Champion) who is the sire of Rachel, Ch. Wyrelee Ladybug ROM.
There are publications and videos that can help the beginner to learn how to strip the wire coat. Enrolling in a grooming seminar where you can get hands on experience is probably the best thing. If that is impossible you can purchas the booklet, GROOMING THE BROKEN-COATED TERRIER by Mrs. Arden Ross. Price is $9.95 and can be ordered from the American Fox Terrier Club. If you go to the links section on my home page you can find the link to the AFTC there.
A video that is very good is called STRIPPING THE BROKEN-COATED BREEDS. Although the breed that is represented is an Airedale, the technique is the same as a wire. The groomer is Michael Kemp. The tape is on one video cassette that lasts 2 hours and costs $39.95.

The Long Down in Obedience

This pictures several dogs doing the long down in an obedience class. You can see that Ch. Wyrelee Banned in Boston CD ROM was doing quite well here. On other occassions she would "graze" or eat the grass. I remember one of the other people at class started calling her "pony" because she was always sniffing and eating grass during the long down. Took me a long time to break her of that. Perhaps the fact that there wasn't any grass here was Banned in Boston's salvation this time!
If you noticed the papillon, he was also mine. He became Ch. Kavar Much Ado CD
If you decide to do some training with your dog, and I hope that you will, find an obedience trainer who has had experience with terriers, especially the wire. If the trainer tells you that they are untrainable, go find another trainer!
The trainer, to be successful with wires, must use many different methods. Since the wire's attention span is short, you must train for short periods of time. Drilling for long periods turns them off. I found that working on one or two exercises for about 10 minutes at a time, and doing it several times a day, was very effective.

Agility is a fun exerience for a wire!

When Amanda Milburn called me up and said that Apollo was going to be competing in his first agility trial, I had to be there. It was one of the greatest events I ever attended. This has to be the perfect activity for the wire. They can run and jump and bark and just be plain silly while they are racing as fast as they can! I couldn't stop laughing while I was watching him run the course. I didn't get to see him get his first leg as he did blow one exercise that day, but he did qualify the next day. Here you see him going through his many exercies in agility.

Special Places For Training and Grooming

Monks of New Skete

Dogpatch (training site)

fox terrier rescue and training site

stripping knives

grooming links

more grooming information

wyrelee1@itexas.net

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