THE UNIQUE SOFT COATED WHEATEN TERRIER
HEAD: Heads should appear rectangular from the front and the side. Skull and muzzle are equal in length. This relationship is easily measured by placing your middle finger on the occiput (bony perturbance on the top of the skull) and your thumb in the middle of the stop which should be at eye level. Then you can, just by looking, compare that distance with that from the stop to the end of the nose.
Depth of skull. (left) Correct depth of skull to make head rectangular. (right) Skull is too deep and coarse.
Head is rectangular from front and side.
The planes of the head should be parallel, controlled by the stop. It should be just deep enough to provide a step-up between the parallel planes. When there’s not enough stop, there is no brow protecting the eyes which appear to “pop” out of the head, gener- ally causing the backskull to fall away. The problem I see most often in Soft Coated Wheaten heads is too much stop, which also results in the backskull falling away. SKULL: The backskull and muzzle should be the same length and not too wide. An average-sized woman’s hand should be able to span the skull between the zygomatic arches. The Irish Terrier Breed Standard stipulates backskulls should be smooth, with- out bumps. While the SCWT Standard only states, “Skull flat and clean between ears,” it is implied there should be no lumps and bumps.
Skull and muzzle. (left) Correct strength and length of skull and muzzle without coarseness. Parallel planes. (right) Skull is too deep and coarse. Muzzle is too short. Planes are not parallel.
The muzzle does taper from the backskull but should fill an average woman’s hand, including a good, strong underjaw to hold large teeth.
• Backskulls should not be too deep. • Backskulls should not be too broad. • Muzzles should not be too short.
• Head planes should be parallel, divided by a moderate stop. EARS: Ear set, size, and carriage are distinguishing hallmarks of expression for Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers. The Soft Coated Wheaten Standard states: “Ears small to medium in size, breaking level with the skull and dropping slightly forward, the inside edge of the ear lying next to the cheek and pointing to the ground rather than to the eye.” With all due respect to the SCWT Breed Standard, there is general agreement among Soft Coated Wheaten breeders that ears appear to break level with the skull. Properly presented, there is short hair on top of Soft Coated Wheatens’ skulls, and short hair on the ear itself. There should be a straight line from ear to ear across the top of a SCWT’s topskull, including the short hair. Underneath the hair, proper SCWT ears break slightly above the level of the skull. If the ears broke level with the skull, they would resemble Sealyham ears. Soft Coated Wheaten ear sets are much improved of late, although low set, “houndy” ears are still occasionally seen.
Width of skull. The breadth of a Wheaten’s skull should be easily spanned by an average-sized woman’s hand. The lines shown are of equal length. The dog on the left is too broad in skull
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