No other breed can lay claim to the same color as the Kerry Blue Terrier, and that makes its distinctive color the breed’s crowning glory. For all that glorious color, however, Kerry Blue Terrier pups are born an apparent black, and if correct, they’ll have their adult color – any uniform shade of blue gray, gray blue, deep slate to light blue gray sometime between eighteen months old or even three or four years old, every dog is different.  Some dogs don’t get their full coloration until they’re three or four years old. That being said, in a show ring, a Kerry must show some sort of clearing by 18 months because a black dog “18 months of age or older is never permissible in the show ring and is to be disqualified” (from the AKC standard).  On the way to adulthood, there is also a “clearing” period when the color passes through transitional periods involving a gun metal blue, shades or tinges of brown, and/or mixtures of these, as the correct mature color phases in. Put another way, a Kerry puppy doesn’t go from black to blue overnight, and as adults, some will have darker “points” on a coat of correct color.

Color, however, isn’t what made the Kerry so popular in Ireland. The breed became so quickly favored as a sort of mascot for Irish patriots that there were no fewer than four clubs promoting the Kerry’s interests, and between 1922 and 1924, these clubs sponsored at least six shows and six field trials. By 1928 this impressive terrier had became popular worldwide and its reputation as an excellent working and companion dog agreed with the breed assessment as “well nigh perfect.”

Image: Kerry Blue Terrier by Peterson Laird
Find her work here: http://petersonlaird.com/