Working Terriers, Badgers and Badger Digging (History of Hunting Series)

By H. H. King

This title was first published in 1931 and is now an extremely rare and sought after item in its first edition. It is now available again to all true terrier men in a revised edition published by Read Country Books. This new edition incorporates the original format plus 20 extra pages containing articles and vintage photos on the same subject. Its 130 pages of historical content contain much detailed information on the working terrier and its use in what was once an acceptable and legal field sport. The first section of the book is devoted to the Working Terrier. The author discusses the qualities and physical attributes that constitute a first class worker. He writes sensibly and with a confidence born from years of practical experience. This section then leads into a chapter of advice on the early training of terriers with much emphasis on the natural progression of their learning curve. This training period also entails the hunting of, and entering to, the rat, fox, and otter. A short chapter deals with the natural history and habits of the badger, then continues at some length with the methods and equipment used in the actual dig. The author points out that the terms "badger-digging" and "badger-baiting" should not be considered synonymous. In his opinion, "If properly conducted, badger-digging is no more cruel a sport than shooting or ratting" The final chapter is a comprehensive discourse on the care and handling of the Working Terrier. Following that are two rare articles, never before reprinted - "HUNTING BROCK THE BADGER" by J.C. Bristow-Noble (author of Working Terriers) and "THE BADGERS OF BADGWORTHY". They both contain much interesting information and many original, vintage photographs. The book is a fascinating look back at a vanished time and an excellent manual on the working terrier, with much information that is still of practical use today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Mar 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781446545027

Book preview

Working Terriers,

Badgers and

Badger-Digging

by

H. H. King

Vintage Dog Books

Home Farm

44 Evesham Road

Cookhill, Alcester

Warwickshire

B49 5LJ

vintagedogbooks.com

© Read Books 2005

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing.

ISBN No. 1-905124-20-1

Published by Vintage Dog Books 2005

Vintage Dog books is an imprint of Read Books

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library.

Vintage Dog Books

Home Farm

44 Evesham Road

Cookhill, Alcester

Warwickshire

B49 5LJ

WORKING TERRIERS

BADGERS AND

BADGER-DIGGING

BY

H. H. KING

Published by

THE FIELD

THE FIELD HOUSE, BREAM’S BUILDINGS,

LONDON, E.C.4

HIGHDOWN PETER, M.F.H. Certificate and winner of many prizes in working terrier classes. His sire was UPPER CROFT WIREBOY, also a worker and bench winner

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. WORKING TERRIERS

II. THE EARLY TRAINING OF A WORKING TERRIER

III. THE BADGER

IV. BADGER-DIGGING

V. THE CARE AND HANDLING OF WORKING TERRIERS

INTRODUCTION

While yet a boy I was given a young terrier bitch which, having taken to self-hunting and proved unusually headstrong and difficult to control, was considered unsaleable. With Nell as my inseparable companion I scoured the countryside for rats, stoats and such small deer, and then one day with no other terrier to help her I dug my first badger. Never shall I forget the joys of that day. In due course the Fates decreed that I should go abroad, but I did not part with my dogs; I could not contemplate a leave without them. Throughout my service abroad there have always been game little working terriers awaiting my return, and to them I am indebted for many a happy hour.

Looking back I feel that often while young I was, quite unwittingly, unkind if not actually cruel both to terriers and to badgers, for except from experience I had no means of learning how terriers should be made and worked and badgers dug. Many of the younger generation care less, I fear, for the various forms of hunting than for other delights, for this is a mechanical age; but there are, and I trust always will be, some who have inherited that keen love of sport which characterised our forefathers, and who can enjoy a day spent in ratting or badger-digging as much as if not more than a day in town. To such I offer this book in the hope that it will fill a want I myself felt when I was young.

H. H. KING.

The Parsonage,

Ospringe.

Working Terriers, Badgers and Badger-digging

CHAPTER I

WORKING TERRIERS

The work of a terrier is, or was, the destruction of vermin—rats, weasels, stoats, hedgehogs, foxes, otters and badgers—and the word terrier originally implied a small dog used for this purpose. With the coming of dog-shows owners were provided with another object for which such dogs might be bred and used—the winning of prizes to be awarded for make and shape and general appearance—and at the present time far more terriers are bred for show than for work. There are in the British Isles many distinct breeds most, if not all, of which originated in working strains. It is difficult to believe that an Airedale or a Kerry Blue of the size of modern representatives of those breeds could have been used to bolt a fox, but the Skye, the Scottish or Aberdeen, the Dandie Dinmont, the Border, the Yorkshire, the Bedlington, the Irish, the Welsh, the Wire and Smooth Foxterriers, the Sealyham and others are undoubtedly the descendants of hard-bitten little dogs employed in the keeping down of vermin.

There are those who believe that the annual hound show held at Peterborough has done infinite harm to the foxhound, in that it has caused masters of hounds to breed for looks rather than for work. While not necessarily supporting that view, I think none will deny that there must be a temptation to use as a stallion hound one which has taken a coveted first at Peterborough, even if his capabilities in the field are only mediocre, rather than the hound which though he can drag up to and unkennel his fox when no other hound in the pack can own the line, and moreover is a tireless worker with a beautiful voice, yet lacks certain of those points of conformation which the show-bench requires. The rule that no hound may be exhibited unless it belongs to a recognised pack, and the natural desire of all masters of hounds to show sport and kill foxes, ensures that the working capabilities of the hounds selected for breeding are not entirely lost sight of, but the same cannot be said of terriers. Very few of those who breed terriers for show use their dogs for work, in fact not many have the opportunity, consequently the present-day studbook terrier is, generally speaking, a dog which even with careful training will not make a first-class working terrier. This remark applies more particularly to those breeds which have been bred for show for generations.

It must be borne in mind that the fact that a terrier will kill a rat does not entitle it to be classed as a working terrier; this term is usually applied to one which has been entered to fox, otter or badger. A terrier may be of a working strain but it is not, strictly speaking, a working terrier until it has been to ground and faced fox, otter or badger in the dark, and it is not a really good working terrier until it can and will do very much more than that. A dog which has earned the title may be likened to a man in the days of our forefathers who won his spurs on the field of battle; it is an honour not to be inherited but to be fought for.

It might be assumed from the foregoing that I am strongly opposed to the breeding of dogs for show and that I consider the winner on the show-bench a useless animal, but such is very far from being the case. Many a man who possesses that keen love for dogs which I like to think is a characteristic of the Englishman, and who has no opportunity of working them, derives an enormous amount of pleasure from the breeding of dogs for show. It enables him to demonstrate his skill as a breeder of animals and provides him with an interest outside his work; it is in fact one of the healthiest and best hobbies a man can devote himself to, and I freely admit that a terrier that has won on the show-bench is, generally speaking, whatever its breed, an extremely handsome and attractive animal.