The easiest way to determine correct coat on a Staffordshire Bull Terrier is to put your hands on them. Run your hand along the coat from shoulder to croup. The coat should feel hard and smooth and sit close to the skin. The hairs themselves should be short and lie flat. When you rub your hand along in the opposite direction, the hairs should feel spiky.
The hairs should not be soft, wirelike, silky or long. They should be short and straight. The Stafford should have equal covering of coat, not appear balding on the underside of the neck or chest.
We have observed that Staffords of different colors have different coat textures and types. Even in pied animals the coat may appear a different texture in the white areas than in the brindle or red areas. We can offer no explanation for this, just noting here.
There is no need to trim the Stafford, however, many people do trim the underside of the tail. The Stafford is to be shown with full whiskers.
(* Authors note – We have here a bitch who has an obsession with whiskers, whether on other dogs or on the face of men. She is constantly trying to chew them off, bite them and pull them. We have no idea why she does this but in her 6 years we have been unable to get her to stop. As a result, we often find ourselves showing dogs with short, stubby whiskers and have had to explain to judges how they got that way, thru no fault of our own. This bitch has been spayed, as part of the reasoning behind it was obsessive, neurological behaviors which we did not wish to pass along. One line of thinking behind this type of behavior in dogs goes back to vaccinosis – not of this particular animal perhaps – but the over vaccination of those behind her. There are various articles on this theory on the internet. We are currently treating this bitch with homeopathic remedies in an attempt to curb her obsessive behaviors.)