Mike
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Wirehair coatsWhat constitutes a "good" wirehair coat? and is it the same across breeds or are they all variations on a theme? Are wire coats double coats (by that I mean do they have a shorter undercoat)? And finally do those that breed Wirehaired coats find that the coats are consistent across a litter or do they see variation?
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windem bang
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Hi Mike, I would be surprised if all the coats were the same. I was told years ago by the man who did it that he being the owner of some of the first wirehairs in this country, had difficulty in finding a suitable sire for his bitch. There were apparently problems with the mouths of the few dogs available. He "fiddled" it and mated his bitch to a G.S.P. !
According to him, the pedigrees of many of todays wirehairs contains his breeding.
I cannot say whether this improved their mouths or not but it must have had some effect on their coats !
Bill T.
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weima
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From the breed standard....
Outer coat thicker and harsh, no longer than 4 cms (11/2 ins) long with a dense undercoat, (undercoat more prevalent in winter than summer). It should not hide body shape but it should be long enough to give good protection. Coat should lie close to the body. Hair on head and ears thick and short, but not too soft. Bushy eyebrows, full but not overlong beard.
I suspect that some coats will be better than others as some will be soft & fluffy too. It is like the Weimaraner coats, some are quite harsh/wirey whilst others are soft.
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countrygirl
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HI Mike
Coats differ completly within a litter and also with colour, the solid liver coats used to be poor but have improved greatly. Lenght is also very varied at the moment the seem to be alot of dogs about with a much shorter wire coat than you would of seen a few years ago. The amount of bread and eyebrows aslo differs, I like mine to have a full beard and eyebrown(Rumous touch her nose) but others perfer to have less facial hair and stripp them out.
Stripping varies from dog to dog some with the shorter wire coat need little while others like my hairy mamouth need several good stripps a year.
Gsp were used in cross breeding with wires when they first came into the country, Sharon would be able to tell you more, I have only read about it and had the breed since 1990.
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Mike
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Sorry, not made myself very clear 
Didn't just mean the GWP but the other Wirehair breeds as well but also the HWV. Are the rough hair coats of the SRP and GRP the same as a wirehair coat? Are there other wirehair breeds i've not mentioned?
I am asking because of a thread on a canine genetics list that was saying it was impossible to get full litters of correct coats in Wirehair Daschunds across a number of generations because of the mode of inheritence. I was wondering if people saw a similar thing in the HPR wirehair breeds.
Thanks for the replys 
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josie
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The SRP wirehair coat comes from a combination of GWP and Cesky Fousek for the wired-ness, so whatever the case is with the GWPs and Ceskies would be the same for the SRP?
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BritAnnie
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I don't remember who told me but I heard when we first got Hester that if there was a huge beard and eyebrows the back coat tended to be softer. But whether that was just a salve to us I don't know. Hester has been much admired for her dense very harsh coat but has very little in the way of furnishings. Any thoughts on this? (she's a GWP)
Annie
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Bareve
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Breeding consistent correct wire coats with correct furnishings is as hard as everything else you need to get right 
Like Carole said coats vary tremendously within the same litter and by colours. Certainly the liver and black parts of the coats will be shorter and less dense than the actual roan part as basically the white hair tends to give depth so the solid coloured patches don't have the white coat so are less thick.
Some of the closer coats will certainly feel harsh to touch and lie close to the body but they run the risk of not having undercoat (or very little) and little furnishings compared to what the average person have in their mind as to what a GWP looks like.
On the whole our litters are more consistent in getting a close body coat with furnishings but we will still get maybe one or two puppies who are slightly heavier coated than I would prefer at 8 wks. And a few years ago we had two smooths pop up from god knows where as we knew (and seen) each and every dog on the pedigree!!
Anne - you were told right. Those 8 wk puppies with a thick/longish coat and full beard and noticeably eyebrows will have a heavier than ideal coat once fully grown. Having said that a dog we had a few years back had quite a heavy coat as a youngster which required twice a year hand stripping however he had a fabulous texture (hair so tough it would stick into your skin when pulling it out like a splinter) and such a thick undercoat you couldn't get water to his skin - yet most people said he had a crap coat because of his full facial hair. I certainly didn't class it as crap but it needed "tidying" up to maintain the texture and undercoat.
Long coats tend to lie open so they aren't water protective so the poor dog suffers from getting cold and wet so they aren't good either.
So in general I would say the Dach people are right in that it is very difficult to produce a full litter of correct coats as coat texture also seems to be a recessive so the parents could be OK/correct and yet something pops up from about 3 generations back!
We also bred 2 litters of HWV and found these even harder to produce correct coats. First litter we used a closer coated dog than ideal and yet we had smooths/correct/woolies - where did them woolies come from!! Our second litter was the same excellent coat Viz had and yet we had the same mixture of coats. The darker more russet coloured ones seem to have the better coats and textures than the golden ones and like the Germans those with a super body coat can sometimes be lacking in face furnishings. IMO I think that the HWV's don't have the same "wire" texture than the GWP's even on those that would be considered an excellent coat.
Don't know anything about Slovaks so can't offer anything.
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Mike
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Thanks for the info Sharon, v. interesting.
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