Do you have a pet peeve when it comes to showing our bouncing Beardies? I do. It’s like this.
The young male was the first Beardie into the ring. His owner gave him one last flick of her brush, put him into a stack and looked up at me with a hopeful smile. I approached, returned her smile and then asked, “May I?” as I gently removed the brush from her hand without waiting for her answer. Wielding it in a firm grip, I eliminated every trace of the offensive ‘knitting needle part’ with a few swift swipes of the brush. Stunned into silence at first, the owner looked down at her dog’s newly brushed back and suddenly broke into laughter. “Chantal (Andrew) did the same thing at a show last month,” she grinned. It appeared the message didn’t take the first time. Yes, Chantal feels the same way about artificial parts.
For those unfamiliar with the term ‘knitting needle part’, perhaps it should be explained this part does not have to be created with a knitting needle. A comb can do the job just as well, or just as badly as the case may be. The alternative to this artificial part is the Natural part. Usually when a Beardie’s adult coat comes in, the coat down the middle of the back will part naturally. Mother Nature is smarter than most humans. What’s the difference between the artificial and Natural part? In the Natural part, there is no exposed skin. That’s it. It harks back to the belief that Beardies should sport a weatherproof coat since they were expected to work outdoors in all kinds of unkind weather. The correct outer coat may be decorated with snowflakes or dampened with raindrops but the undercoat and skin remain dry. You’ve probably come to grips with this when you bath your Beardie and realize just how much water and time it takes to get the coat wet enough all the way through to work up a sudsy lather. In a Natural part, some hairs fall to one side, some to the other so the skin and undercoat is protected.
Think of the artificial part this way. You’re going outside in a heavy rainstorm. You have an otherwise excellent rain coat but the seam down the middle of the back has split open. That’s your knitting needle part. Damp, isn’t it? Why so many handlers feel it enhances the Beardie’s appearance is a puzzle. It doesn’t. And nothing looks more ridiculous than a KNP on a fluffy puppy coat. Unless it’s a crooked KNP. Some people can’t draw a straight line. Once, while judging Briards I encountered the strangest part. It started at the normal place, headed straight down the middle of the back for a bit, then started to deviate to the right, finally making a swooping curve to disappear in the vicinity of the right hip. “Who groomed your dog?” The young lady on the lead promptly answered, “My mother.” My suggestion? Hide the grooming tools before her mother strikes again.
In a way it’s understandable that professional handlers would opt for something like a KNP. They’re paid to win with a dog so it behooves them to groom the dog so it stands out, a little different from the competition. The fads come and go. Paws trimmed perfectly circular. Hair around the eyes plucked till the poor dogs resembled raccoons. The underline snipped and shaped so every hair was aligned with its neighbor. Coat on forelegs scissored in precise columns from elbows to ground with no hint of paws showing. Profuse hair below the hocks styled in the distinctive trim of the Cocker Spaniels. Hair on the skull backcombed, and sprayed. Encountering the teased head hair of a Beardie in her ring, a judge berated the handler for having “Texas hair” on her dog. She said it reminded her of the heavily backcombed hairdo she saw there on western ladies. Truthfully, the knitting needle part pales in comparison to some of the ‘grooming’ atrocities committed on our Beardies. And all this on a ‘natural’ breed!
Wasn’t it Shakespeare who wrote, “Parting is such sweet sorrow”?
— alice bixler, Bearded Collie Club of America.
