Coat & Color

The Scottish Terrier is a double-coated dog. In its natural state, the undercoat is soft, short and very dense. The outer coat is straight and harsh to the touch. A hard-coated youngster may have a slight wave to the coat. This nearly always disappears as the dog matures.

It is interesting that the first Scottish and English Standards neglected to mention the Scottie's double-coat. The only words on the subject of coat were: "The coat should be rather short (about 2 in.), intensely hard and wiry in texture, and very dense all over the body."

Perhaps the drafters were unable to conceive of a Scottish Terrier who would lack a dense undercoat, since such a one would be unlikely to survive long in the cold, damp climate of his native Highlands. In any event, this omission was remedied in the 1933 English Standard, which said :The dog has two coats; the undercoat short, dense, and soft; the outer coat harsh, dense, and wiry; the two making a weather-resisting covering for the dog."

Throughout the revisions to both English and American Standards, the basic requirements for a correct Scottish Terrier coat have remained VERY consistent. Notwithstanding, a review of photographs of leading Scotties over the past century shows a rather dramatic change in the appearance of the coats characterized by a marked increase in leg and face furnishings.

1900s	1930s
1950s	1980s

The most evident change occurred some time in the 1920s, when face and leg furnishings became more profuse. For show dogs, this added hair served two purposes. First, it gave the dog a more glamorous appearance, thereby increasing the breed's popularity with the general public. Second, it enabled artful trimmers to disguise defects in their show dogs. Dorothy Caspersz and other conservative fanciers argued the benefits of the original coat: that the dog required almost no trimming to maintain his appearance, and the correct coat repelled both water and dirt.

It is impossible today to say with certainty whether modern coats are really softer than the turn-of-the- century coats, but the fad of the 1930s for whiskers and furnishings has become a fact today, as has trimming.

The 1993 STCA Standard was the first to address the issue of trimming: "The coat should be trimmed and blended into the furnishings to give a distinct Scottish Terrier outline. The dog should be presented with sufficient coat so that the texture and density may be determined. The longer coat on the beard, legs, and lower body may be slightly softer than the body coat but should not be or appear fluffy."

A properly presented Scottish Terrier coat is trimmed by pulling out the hairs. This is accomplished either by plucking the hair with finger and thumb, or by pulling the hair with a specially-designed knife. This process is commonly referred to as "stripping" the coat, and the knives are called "stripping knives."

Properly presented, the jacket should look clean and shiny and lie flat and tight around the muscular body. When examined closely, the outer coat of the jacket should be long enough so that the crisp texture of the hair can be felt. When the hair is parted, the soft undercoat should be easily seen. Ideally, one should not be able to see the skin on a correctly-coated Scottish Terrier, but most groomers today remove much of the undercoat.

Only the throat, cheeks, and the backs of the ears may be clippered. Lazy trimmers frequently clip the side of the neck, the shoulders, the topskull, and the rear. This should be penalized since it softens the texture of the coat in those areas.