Working Terriers - Their Management, Training and Work, Etc.

By J. C. Bristow-Noble

This rare book was one of the few early 20th century dog books to deal solely with the true `Working Terrier'. Now very scarce and much sought after in its original limited edition,we have reprinted it in a high quality hard back format. Written by an expert in both breeding and working terriers, the book is packed with practical advice, and includes many original photographs of terriers in action against a variety of quarry. J.C. Bristow-Noble was well known in his time as a breeder of top quality sporting Terriers. He spent many years experimenting with cross-breeding Fox Terriers and Sealyhams with other dog breeds and occasionally with famous mongrel Terriers, before finally concentrating on Jack Russell Terriers, always keeping the description of Russell's famous "Trump" in his mind's eye. His ideal sporting terrier for entering to badger, fox and other quarry was a thick-set 14 pound, hard/dense coated dog with a muzzle of moderate length and an even and fairly thick jaw bone. This rule of thumb eventually led to him owning a kennel of working dogs second to none and well-known throughout the country. His Terriers were regularly sold for sums in excess of £50.00 - an enormous sum of money in the early 1900s. His stud dogs were also much in demand even at his minimum stud fee of 10 guineas. Contents include: The Correct Type of Working Terrior; Ratting; Badger Hunting; On the Use of Terriors Against: Otter, Fox, Stoat, Rabbit; On the Use of Terriors Against Moles; On the Care, Choice and Correct Use of Ferrets; Some Diseases and Their Treatment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Dec 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781447487616

Book preview

Ferrets

WORKING TERRIERS

CHAPTER I.

THE CORRECT TYPE OF WORKING TERRIER.

Rich as Britain is in breeds of dogs, there is small doubt that there is no breed as popular as the fox terrier. Wherever Englishmen are to be found there you will also find the little dog. It has accompanied Englishmen to some of the most remote and inaccessible regions of the world, removed by thousands of miles from civilisation; it has shared the hardships and dangers of war with him both on land and sea; it has accompanied him on hazardous journeys by aeroplane; it has often been his only friend and companion during periods of poverty, receiving the morsels that could be spared it with as much joy and thankfulness as though each had been a feast. Strange to say, however, the breed is not an old one. A couple of centuries have not yet passed since it was originated.

Everybody knows that there are two varieties of fox terriers, the smooth and the wire-coated. The two are kept and bred in hundreds, both professionally and as a hobby, and exhibited very largely, as patrons of the dog show are well aware.

But it is not of show terriers that I am going to treat in this little book. It is of working terriers, this is to say, terriers for sport. I shall not say anything about the breeds of Scotch terriers, for, although some of the individual members of the different breeds are often useful in the field of sport, in the aggregate the dogs cannot come under the heading of workers. The fox terrier and the comparatively new breed of terrier—the Sealyham—are the workers, and, paradoxical as it may sound, the better bred these are, of less value are they for work. As a matter of fact, all the best workers are either cross-bred fox terriers or cross-bred Sealyhams.

I have owned some of the best-bred wire and smooth-coated terriers, and some of the best-bred Sealyhams, but few were of use for real work, consequently I found little enjoyment in keeping them. True, all would kill a rat when the opportunity presented itself, and a few worked fairly well with ferrets, but beyond this the dogs, as I have said, were of little use. Their noses were far from true, all grew to too large a size, particularly the Sealyhams; all lacked stamina, courage, and intelligence. I did not succeed in coaxing one to go to ground, yet I had difficulty in training the whole not to worry poultry and sheep, the hall-mark of stupidity in a dog.

A few of the bitches I mated with some mongrel terriers famous as workers, but again the results were disappointing. With an exception now and again the puppies bred were useless for serious work. So at length I gave up the attempt of making workers out of pedigree terriers, and confined myself to building up a strain of workers from crossbred terriers.

This proved a most fascinating and, eventually, profitable hobby. But what pains, patience, and experiments it exacted! For to breed workers of a sturdy build, yet not weighing more than 14 lbs. when fully grown and developed, and with pluck enough to tackle anything at the word of command, and finally with sufficient intelligence that they may be broken without undue trouble, is not one of the easiest tasks.

There is no doubt that the Jack Russell type of working terrier is still the best. Most of my readers will not need reminding who Jack Russell was. Never was there a more enthusiastic or skilful master of foxhounds amongst the Church of England clergy, nor a better judge of both a good dog and a good horse. It is interesting to recall how Russell came by the first of the terriers that help to keep his name fresh in our memories. When an undergraduate at Oxford, he chanced one morning to meet a milkman with a terrier—such an animal, we are told, as Russell hitherto had only seen in his dreams.

He stopped the man and bought the dog. Her name was Trump, and her colour white, with just a patch of dark tan over each eye and ear, and a similar dot, not larger than a penny piece, at the root of the tail. The coat, which was thick, close, and a trifle wiry, was well calculated to protect the body from wet and cold, but bore no resemblance to the long, rough jacket of the Scotch terrier. The legs were straight, short and thick, and the feet perfect, while the size was equal to that of a full-grown vixen fox, that is to say, her weight was about 12 lbs. Finally, the whole appearance gave indications of courage, endurance, and hardihood.

This neat little bitch, as I have just indicated, was the foundation-stone on which Russell built up the whole of his strain of workers. He had a poor opinion of the show terrier, which, he used to say, had so much strange blood in it that it would puzzle anyone to find out to what race it belonged.

The blood of the Italian greyhound, that of the beagle and that of the bulldog was, he said, mixed with that of the true fox terrier, with the result that too large and soft a dog was bred.

Of course, since those days the show terrier has been improved greatly, and in appearance now leaves little to be desired. Indeed, in my opinion, the only fault that can now be found with its looks is that it is a little too leggy; that is, too long on the leg. When setting out to breed workers, the description of Trump should be kept before the mind’s eye. Let her be your model. Her coat was precisely what a worker’s should be. It might be described as a pin-wire coat of more than average thickness. Such a coat is far from common, for mate your terriers never so carefully, it is difficult to obtain, but once well established in a strain it is likely to become permanent.

It is well worth while to spare no pains to breed puppies with the coat. It will be found that rain and water quickly get to the skin of a terrier with a smooth, short coat, a long, woolly coat, or a wire coat like that of the show terrier; that is, a coat particularly wiry, but thin. Besides, such coats afford small protection from thorns, sharp stones, and the cold, biting winds of the winter.

Times out of number I have both seen and bred workers satisfactory in every way except with regard to coat. It sometimes chances that a first-rate coat is obtained by mating a smooth-coated bitch with a dog with a fairly short, hard, wire coat. It more often happens, however, that the ideal coat is obtained more by chance than by design. No matter what experiments you may make in mating you cannot rely on the correct coat resulting therefrom. Disappointments of this kind, however, make the hobby the more interesting and the triumphs the sweeter.

Build, of course, is of no less importance than a dense, fairly hard coat. The terriers should be thick set. The forelegs