Baroness Burton

Cairn Terrier Association of Ireland

Baroness Burton Standard of a good Cairn

The head is to my mind the most important point in a Cairn Terrier.  Thereby virtually hangs all true type.  The Cairn with a good head is half  "through".  The novice will ask, what is a good head?  Like most things one is under the impression one thoroughly understands, this is hard to define.  The head should be wedge shaped. The skull wide between the ears, tapering to the nose.  The width between the ears is most essential.  The ears should not be set too wide apart or at the side of the head, nor yet near together on the top of the skull.  They should be very small and very pointed, preferably black in colour.

'The eye must be dark hazel, medium in size and not prominent.  Personally, I penalize a dog less for large eyes than for small round "boot button" black ones.  The later denotes a modern "Scottie" cross.  The large eyes was quite usual thirty and more years ago.  No Cairn can have a proper expression unless it has eye-lashes, a very simple fact to bear in mind, but one which proves itself every time.

'The head should be well feathered, vis. covered in hair about three to four inches long.  If possible this hair should not be silky, as this tends to give a Dandie Dinmont appearance; but a silky top-knot is far more typical and far less objectionable than a bare head.

' The muzzle and foreface should only be fairly strong and certainly not long.  A lion a panther and an otter all have marvelously powerful jaws, but no one can call them long.  Do not think that I am advocating a miserable, little, weak snipy face I am not. A Cairns face should resemble that of a cat, more than that of a Scottish Terrier.  The real old Cairn fanciers, the Gaelic speakers, alluded to the perfect cairn head as "Endecath" (I do not vouch for the spelling), which means "cat face".

'A good head is a tremendously prepotent trait.  Once get good heads into your strain, and you need have no fear of losing them.  The Brocaires are a case in point; one and all have model heads; no outcross hides their beauty, and you can at once tell a dog with Brocaire blood from its head.

'Do not believe the people when they tell the "baby-faced Cairn cannot be game.  From my pretty extensive experience I know the owners of the "pretty" faces are all the best hunters, the pluckiest in the ring, and the general all round "devil" in the home circle.  It is impossible to conceive a gamer, wickeder than Brocaire Raonuill, and he typifies the "baby" face.

'The teeth should be white and very strong, almost giving the impression of being too big for the mouth. The upper row should just overlap the under, the same as in a person.; a so called level jaw, i.e. the teeth exactly meeting, is barely removed from under-shot, and is very nearly as serious a fault as a level mouthed dog can have no grip.'