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Skye Terrier and Clydesdale: A history of these classic breeds

The most devout lover of this charming and beautiful terrier would fail if he were to attempt to claim for him the distinction of descent from antiquity. Bradford, and not Babylon, was his earliest home, and he must be candidly acknowledged to be a very modern manufactured variety of the dog. Yet it is important to remember that it was in Yorkshire that he was made, where live the cleverest
breeders of dogs that the world has known.

One can roughly reconstitute the process. What the Yorkshiremen desired to make for themselves was a pigmy, prick-eared terrier with a long, silky, silvery grey and tan coat. They already possessed the foundation in the old English Black and Tan wire-haired Terrier. To lengthen the coat of this working breed they might very well have had recourse to a cross with the prick-eared Skye, and to eliminate the wiry texture of the hair a further cross with the Maltese dog would impart softness and silkiness without reducing the length. Again, a cross with the Clydesdale, which was then assuming a fixed type, would bring the variety yet nearer to the ideal, and a return to the black and tan would tend to conserve the desired colour. In all probability the Dandie Dinmont had some share in the process. Evidence of origin is often to be found more distinctly in puppies than in the mature dog, and it is to be noted that the puppies of both the Dandie and the Yorkshire are born with decided black and tan colouring.

The original broken-haired Yorkshire Terrier of thirty years ago was often called a Scottish Terrier, or even a Skye, and there are many persons who still confound him with the Clydesdale, whom he somewhat closely resembles. At the present time he is classified as a toy dog and exhibited almost solely as such. It is to be regretted that until very lately the terrier character was being gradually bred out of him, and that the perkiness, the exuberance and gameness which once distinguished him as the companion of the Yorkshire operative, was in danger of being sacrificed to the desire for diminutive size and inordinate length of coat.

Perhaps it would be an error to blame the breeders of Yorkshire Terriers for this departure from the original type as it appeared,
say, about 1870. It is necessary to take into consideration the probability that what is now called the old-fashioned working variety was never regarded by the Yorkshiremen who made him as a complete and finished achievement. It was possibly their idea at the very beginning to produce just such a diminutive dog as is now to be seen in its perfection at dog shoes, glorying in its flowing tresses of steel blue silk and ruddy gold; and one must give them full credit for the patience and care with which during the past forty years they have been steadily working to the fixed design of producing a dwarfed breed which should excel all other breeds in the length and silkiness of its robe.

Many exhibitors pretend that they use no dressing, or very little, and this only occasionally, for the jackets of their Yorkshire Terriers; but it is quite certain that continuous use of grease of some sort is not only advisable but even necessary.

For the full display of their beauty, Yorkshire Terriers depend very much upon careful grooming. It is only by grooming that the silvery cascade of hair down the dog's sides and the beautiful tan face-fall that flows like a rain of gold from his head can be kept perfectly straight and free from curl or wrinkle; and no grease or pomade, even if their use were officially permitted, could impart to the coat the glistening sheen that is given by the dexterous application of the brush.

Mr. Peter Eden, of Manchester, is generally credited with being the actual inventor of the Yorkshire Terrier. He was certainly one of the earliest breeders and owners during teh nineteenth century, and his celebrated Albert was only one of the many admirable specimens with which he convinced the public of the charms of this variety of dog.

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