LAKELAND TERRIER COLORS
LAKELANDS HAVE THE NARROWEST BAND OF COLOR OF ANY OF THE WIRE-COATED, LONG-LEGGED TERRIER BREEDS.
bitch ever in this country. Majors, like now, were scarce as hen’s teeth. With the bitch in top condition, I was hoping for the best when, whaddaya know, the lights went out in the show building and I thought, “No way.” But it was amazing. The handler was wearing a light pink suit, the other (saddle-marked grizzle and tan) dogs might have been wearing camouflage, and that black Lakeland was beauti- fully silhouetted in the gloom. The judge was a retired handler who was very knowledgeable in the breed, and the Lakeland finished that day. It can also be difficult to win with liver and tan Lakelands, especially when they mature to a significant level of grizzle (the progressive infiltration of the saddle with tan hairs). They can then look very similar to red grizzle individuals, but they have a brown nose and eye rims, and generally gold or amber eye color instead of brown, which is quite correct for a liver or liver and tan. No treatise on Lakeland color would be complete without mention of the banded nature of the hair. All the wire-coated Terriers have pale gray hair roots. (This is the reason that clippered dogs of these breeds generally become progres- sively lighter in color.) Lakelands have the narrowest band of color of any of the
wire-coated, long-legged Terrier breeds. This makes their coat more challenging to present for show if you attempt to roll the coat. There is a tendency for it to “open up” and reveal the lighter roots (hence the custom of grooming for the ring with colored chalk). The furnishings can particularly become quite “moth eaten” in appearance without the metic- ulous staging of the hair so that there is absolute
154 | SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, JULY 2022
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