Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier
An Irish farm terrier with a silky wheaten coat that never quite behaves. The greeting is a jump, and generations of owners have failed to train it out.
Overview
The Wheaten is an Irish farm dog that herded, guarded and killed vermin, and it is one of the few terriers expected to do all three. The coat is unique in the group: soft, silky and wavy rather than harsh and wiry, and it comes in a single wheaten colour.
Puppies are born dark and the coat clears to wheaten over the first two years, which surprises new owners.
Temperament
Exuberant, friendly and famously bouncy. Wheatens are affectionate with everyone including strangers, which makes them poor guard dogs, and they greet people by jumping, which is called the Wheaten greetin.
They are less scrappy with other dogs than most terriers and they are stubborn. They are also boisterous well into adulthood and they need training on the jumping early, because a forty pound dog doing it is different from a puppy doing it.
Care and grooming
The soft coat mats readily and needs combing right to the skin every day or two plus trimming every couple of months. It does not shed much, and no dog is truly hypoallergenic.
Protein losing nephropathy and protein losing enteropathy are the serious breed specific concerns, both progressive and both worth screening for with annual bloodwork and urine protein testing. Renal dysplasia and Addison's disease also occur.
Living and exercise
An hour and a half a day plus play.
The protein losing conditions are the reason to buy from a breeder who screens and who will discuss what has happened in their lines. Twelve to fourteen years.
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