Grooming Terrier Group

What these breeds have in common

Terriers were bred to go to ground after vermin, and almost everything about the group follows from that: small, hard, determined dogs with coats built to shrug off dirt and thorns. Miniature and Standard Schnauzers, West Highland Whites, Airedales, Scotties, Cairns, Borders, Jack Russells, Staffordshire Bull Terriers and Bull Terriers all sit here.

This is the home of the wire coat, and it is the one group where the single biggest grooming decision an owner makes is irreversible. Hand stripping and clipping produce different looking dogs, and going from one to the other is easy in exactly one direction.

It is also the group with the strongest opinions about being held still, which affects the appointment more than most people expect.

Not every terrier is wire coated

The group name suggests one coat and delivers three, and the difference matters when you are booking.

Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers and Boston Terriers carry short smooth coats. There is nothing to strip and nothing to clip. They shed steadily, they need a rubber curry and a bath, and their appointment is nails, ears and skin. A Staffie owner reading about hand stripping is reading about a different dog.

The Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier is the other outlier and goes the opposite way: a soft, silky, continuously growing single coat with no harsh jacket at all. It mats readily, it needs a full haircut on a schedule, and it is groomed like a silky coat rather than like a terrier.

The Kerry Blue and the Bedlington are curly rather than wire, and are clipped and scissored like a Poodle.

So the group tells you the dog was bred to go to ground. It does not reliably tell you what is on it, and the coat pages are the better guide.