It’s the hats!

Whether strolling down a street in Harlem, or lining up to get the best cut of meat at the butcher store, there was a time when women (and men) seldom left home without wearing a hat. An added feature to a lady’s hat might be the attachment of a veil, but far from intending to cover the eyes, a veil called attention to them. These days, hats seem to be relegated to royal weddings, famous horse races and dog shows (Morris and Essex), and even then, some hats are more of a “fascinator” (a decorate hair piece) than an actual hat.

But we digress from our tortured segue into a term that appears in only four breed standards: The term is “veiled.”

Needless to say, the aforementioned standards are for coated breeds, and typically, “veiled” is used either to indicate that eyes must be visible and not veiled by hair (the Pyrenean Shepherd, Briard, Bouvier des Flandres),  or that the hair “veils forehead and eyes to serve as protection from brush and briar as well as amid serious encounters with other animals” – Skye Terrier.

Without its veiling, a Skye Terrier would somehow look “off,” making it the “Audrey Hepburn of the canine world.”